Prior art thermal energy sources consisted primarily of Gas Turbines, Microturbines, Reciprocating Engines, Steam Turbines, Nuclear Power Plants, Radioisotope Thermal Generator, Geothermal, Stirling Engines, Fuel Cells and other thermal input sources operating in conjunction with combined heating and power (CHP). The preferred method of the present invention encapsulates a Stirling engine and absorption cooling system and an associated storage system with integrated control system into an amalgamated energy ecosystem.
Prior art energy and thermal sources consisted primarily of gas turbines, microturbines, reciprocating engines, steam turbines, nuclear power plants, radioisotope thermal generator, geothermal, boilers, Stirling engines, fuel cells, thermal solar systems, and other thermal input sources, all of which generally used single cycle systems. These were generally accepted in prior art as a controlled and semi controlled method of creating usable work with an energy input, these methods are well documented in prior art and typically related information and supporting literature is readily and publicly available. Prior art single cycle implementations all suffered from lower efficiency and substandard performance to include non-optimized design and development. Prior art typically used steam as a primary medium to transfer thermal energy, steam suffers from low density thereby equating to lower thermal transfer yields and efficiency compared to other direct methods. The present invention's preferred embodiment offers a reliable thermal management system that is comprised of connections such as a thermosiphon for low thermal transfer use, heat pipe for high thermal transfer use, thermal exchanger using thermal transfer mediums such as steam, water and glycol mixture, oil or molten salt, a combination of these systems and components may be used for thermal temperature management of the thermal generational source. The preferred embodiment provides enhanced waste heat reclamation and energy recycling thereby gaining additional efficiency.
Each sequential prior art so called enhancement such as what is commonly but mistakenly referred to as combined cycle systems (CCS) was based on flawed design logic by inclusion of faulty and trouble prone prior art methods with non-optimized nor monetized integrated solutions, prior art typically included and incorporated a great many inefficient standalone applications and processes in prior art implementations thereby perpetrating substandard performance and similarly low operational efficiencies and associated characteristics.
Mobile methods of prior art would include automobiles, trucks, trains and ships using mechanical driven applications, stationary methods of prior art would include non-mobile applications such as pumps, compressors, generators, these lists are not to be considered exhaustive. The items listed above are only provided as examples of associated applications of fuel or energy driven forces for the expressed purpose of demonstrating enhancement and extension of functionality of integration with prior art methods of creating processes and applications to do work.
The preferred embodiment is encompassed within the encapsulation of a unified analysis, monitor, control and energy provisioning system, Stirling engine, absorption cooling, thermal storage and enhancing system efficiency from recycling and reclamation processes of thermal waste energy which defines a clear and present advantage to define the preferred method of the present invention over prior art and its implementations.
Prior art did in fact advance single cycle generations systems to use a secondary cycle, mistakenly named, targeted and narrowly envisioned as a combined cycle system. This type of system added a secondary generation method, typically using steam generation from thermal communication of waste heat as its process for the purpose of using inefficient steam turbines, increased capital cost ratios, expensive operations and management, increased water demand and usage from local supplies, the technology also carries with it an explosion risk and potential for injury to employees from related operational risks. Prior art use of combined cycles typically used energy usage level inputs as leverage against increase in total efficiency gains at depreciated advancement of energy usage efficiency. The preferred method of the present invention additional advantage to prior art comprises the application and processes of the preferred embodiment to expand and enhance value added advantages over prior art in that excess thermal energy to thermal energy storage with hot and cold thermal energy input to expand the available temperature band, additionally electrical generational energy may be stored as chemical energy storage as a medium for enhanced overall system efficiency, energy utilization and expanded energy storage capability.
Typically, thermal transfer methods such as thermosiphons, heat pipes and heat exchangers using transfer mediums such as molten salt, water, water/glycol, steam and other phase change materials typically require the use of pumps and compressors for pressure as the general accepted methods of applications and processes to communicate thermal energy from point to point. Additionally, thermosiphons and heat pipes may be substituted for the above methods for transfer and communication of thermal energy.
Prior art typically uses cooling towers for wet and dry cooling. Fans powered by electrical energy. The preferred method of the present invention uses Stirling engines using thermal waste heat to provide input basis for rotational energy generation for the cooling fan and using waste heat for supply to absorption cooling for higher efficiency of the Stirling usage of the cold thermal input and to facilitate higher cooling capacity of the cooling tower using waste heat to cold via absorption cooling.
The preferred method of the present invention will extend efficiencies and performance enhancements by inclusion and integration to previously installed prior art systems and devices such as nuclear power plants, coal power plants, natural gas power plants, geothermal power plants, radioisotope thermal generators and other applications that use thermal intensive applications that generate thermal energy typically use steam powered systems, typically and generally using steam turbines. These systems commonly use dry and wet cooling towers at the detriment of expunging usable thermal energy through the cooling towers steam release or associated cooling system typically by using additional energy to power the circulation cooling fans, water pumping and steam control system and excessive and water released as steam in many area's is a needed commodity not always readily available in bulk as is the case with wet cooling, or as in the case of dry cooling the excessive energy usage with the circulations cooling fans, coolant pumps and steam control systems. Steam systems also suffer from deterioration of their system components and pipes from the caustic effects of water stripped of suspended solids or pH balancing additives when converted to steam and its highly corrosive properties increasing operations and maintenance costs.
Prior art design of a Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG) is simple by the standards of nuclear technology: the main component is a sturdy container of a radioactive material (the fuel). Typically, thermocouples where placed in the walls of the container, with the outer end of each thermocouple connected to a heat sink. Radioactive decay of the fuel produces thermal energy as heat which flows through the thermocouples to the heat sink, generating electricity in the process.
Typically, prior art RTG implementation uses a thermocouple which is a thermoelectric device that typically was used to convert thermal energy directly into electrical energy using the well-established “Seebeck effect”. The application primarily consists of two kinds of metal, potentially comprised of semiconductors in which both can conduct electricity. These conductors are typically connected to each other in a closed loop topology. If the two junctions of these conductors are at different temperatures, an electric current will typically be found flowing in the loop.
Prior art RTG's generally use thermoelectric couples or “thermocouples” to convert thermal energy from the radioactive material thermal reaction for conversion into electricity. Generally, thermocouples are very reliable and have a relative long lifespan, they are however also highly inefficient; efficiencies above 10% have generally never been achieved and most RTGs have efficiencies between 3-7% and sustained power output also is a huge limiting factor. Research has been done with objectives to improve efficiency by using other technologies to generate electricity from the available thermal energy. The ultimate goal is that by achieving higher efficiency would translate into less radioactive fuel is required to generate the same amount of power, and therefore a lighter overall weight for the generator. This is a critically important factor in spaceflight launch, drone and other prototype development and associated cost considerations.
A thermionic converter—an energy conversion device which relies on the principle of thermionic emission—can achieve efficiencies between 10-20%, but requires higher temperatures than those at which standard RTGs typically operate. Other potentially extreme radioactive isotopes could also have been used to provide power, but short half-lives make these unfeasible. Several space-bound nuclear reactors have previously used thermionics, but nuclear reactors are generally too heavy to use on most small area implementations.
Dynamic generators can provide power at a multiple of times higher than the conversion efficiency of prior art RTGs. The preferred method of the present invention consists primarily of a next-generation radioisotope-fueled power source called the Stirling Radioisotope Generator (SRG) that uses free-piston Stirling engines coupled to alternators or a generator for the purpose of converting thermal energy to electricity. SRG prototypes demonstrated an efficiency of around 20%. The use of non-contacting moving parts, non-degrading flexural bearings, and a lubrication-free and hermetically sealed environment has, in test units, demonstrated no appreciable degradation over years of operation. Past experimental trials and corresponding results demonstrate that an SRG could continue running for decades with little or no maintenance. Vibration can be eliminated as a concern by implementation of dynamic balancing or use of dual-opposed piston movement. Potential applications of a Stirling radioisotope power system include exploration and science missions to deep-blue sea probes, drones and submarines, deep-space, space probes, landers, rovers, which would include bases on the Moon, Mars and other potential stationary bases. The preferred method of presentation advantage over prior art through its use of available thermal input into a Stirling engine and absorption cooling to widen the available thermal temperature band and increase usage of this temperature band thereby increasing efficiency and its advantage.
Liquid desiccant technology to perform dehumidification has been in use since the 1930s. A liquid desiccant is simply a liquid that has a high affinity for water (naturally absorbs moisture from the air) and is used as a drying agent. A desiccant refers to any substance that has a high affinity for water (hygroscopic) and is used as a drying agent.
Heat Recovery Ventilation (HRV) and Energy Recovery Ventilation (ERV) systems are typically ducted ventilation systems generally consisting of two fans—one to draw air in from outside and one to remove stale internal air. Throughout the cooling season, the system works to cool and dehumidify the incoming, outside air. This is primarily accomplished by the system taking the rejected heat and sending it into the exhaust airstream to recycle the thermal energy.
Subsequently, this air cools the condenser coil at a lower temperature than if the rejected heat had not entered the exhaust airstream. During the heating seasons, the system works in a reverse mannerism. Instead of discharging the heat into the exhaust airstream, the system draws thermal energy from the exhaust airstream in order to pre-heat the incoming air. It is at this point that the air passes through a primary unit and then into the controlled space. With this type of system, it is normal, during the cooling seasons, for the exhaust air to be cooler than the ventilation air and, during the heating seasons, warmer than the ventilation air. It is for this reason the system works very efficiently and effectively. The Coefficient of Performance (COP) will greatly increase as the conditions become more extreme and additional benefit and efficiency from the increased system loads when communicated from thermal storage enhances overall value and annual energy savings.
Energy recovery ventilation (ERV) systems are similar to HRV systems but they transfer water vapor carried as moisture in the form of humidity as well as heat energy, thereby controlling humidity levels. In the case of the summer season, they can remove some of the water vapor from the moisture-laden outdoor air before it is brought indoors; in the case of the winter season, they can transfer moisture in the form of humidity as well as heat energy to the incoming colder, dryer outdoor air. An air-to-air heat exchanger, generally installed in a roof space, recovers heat from the internal air before it is discharged to the outside, and warms the incoming air with the recovered heat. The efficiency of an ERV system is the ratio of energy transferred between the two air streams compared with the total energy transported through the heat exchanger. A heat recovery ventilation system is not a heating system, but it is typically able to recover between 65-95% of the heat from the exhaust air before it is discharged to outside.
Energy recovery ventilation (ERV) is the energy recovery process of exchanging the energy contained in typical controlled units and building area air and using it to treat whether in summer would precool or in winter preheat the incoming outdoor ventilation air in enclosed units, residential and commercial HVAC systems. For instance, during the warmer seasons, the system pre-cools and dehumidifies while humidifying and pre-heating in the cooler seasons. The benefit of using energy recovery is the ability to meet the appropriate ventilation & energy standards, while improving indoor air quality and reducing total energy requirements and associated HVAC equipment capacity requirements.
Desalination is known and generally accepted in prior art as a controlled and semi controlled environment for desalination and is well documented in prior art and typically related information and supporting literature is readily and publicly available. This apparatus can produce drinking water on an ultra large scale, at a price that is truly competitive with pumping from a reservoir or ground well or deep well aquifer, and produces no brine effluent to be disposed of due to the preferred method of the present invention of evaporation, distillation, processing, separation of associated minerals and components from ocean and seas water sources.
Many different types and methods have been developed and used over centuries of its use for fresh water supplies and as a method for salt extraction. Fresh water and salt are two essential elements required for a typical cycle of life for the survival of all living creatures which is including humans. The primary sources of salt is generally mined from rocks or extracted from sea water from the oceans and seas. Maximum consumption of salt is in its natural form after being produced from oceans, seas or mined directly from rock formations. Salt is needed in regulating the fluid balance or water content of body. Through time, awareness about the use and potential abuse of salt has grown tremendously and the demand for refined iodized salt has increased dramatically over the last few years. Salt cravings may occur as a result of trace mineral deficiencies or due to the deficiency of sodium chloride itself.
Salt is important for preservation of life, but misuse and overconsumption can cause serious health problems, such as high blood pressure and inflammation, more so from those individuals who are genetically predisposed to hypertension. Diets high in salt also known as sodium, tied to hypertension and heart risk in some studies, may also worsen diseases caused by abnormal immune response, laboratory research suggests.
In recent studies, mice fed high-salt diets had a more severe version of an animal form of multiple sclerosis, an autoimmune disease that affects the central nervous system. Additional studies show the cells interact with the body to promote inflammation. Additionally, autoimmune diseases, illnesses such as psoriasis and asthma in which the system that protects the body from invaders wrongly attacks healthy cell from excessive salt intake.
Desalination, desalinization or desalting refers to one of several processes that are used to remove a desired amount of salt and other minerals from saline water, brine and seawater. Typically, desalination may also refer to the removal of salts and minerals from soil. Generally, seawater is desalinated to produce fresh water, commonly referred to as potable water which is suitable for human and animal consumption or used for crop irrigation. Some potential byproducts of seawater desalination if separated and processed are salt, gypsum, magnesium chloride, magnesium sulfate, potassium chloride, potassium hydroxide, boron and bromine, the above list is not exhaustive, and this does not reflect the entire list of recoverable salts and minerals from oceans and seas.
Desalination is the method to access fresh water used in countries that lack natural fresh water supplies and additionally used aboard many sea going ships and submarines. Most current efforts with desalination, recycling surface runoff and wastewater processing are typically focused on developing cost-effective ways of providing fresh potable water for hydration and irrigation. Along with and including wastewater which is one of the few rainfall-independent water sources.
Data Center prior art and past design approach implementations generally maintained the philosophy of filling the room to capacity with components and then attempt best effort using the best-known methods available to cool it and provide emergency power for backup purposes. Typically, data centers were designed for tight spacing and for air flow through the floor, up through the data center cases and out through the top which was then vented from the room through ducts. Prior art typically used large air conditioners or mechanical chillers, then efforts to use more imaginative methods using what worked well in the past with the use of evaporative cooling system, this was paired with an external airside economizer by bringing in colder air from outside which cools the facility and the data center computers, the weakness of this system is the extremely low density of air, more so in its highly limited thermal energy transfer ability and the rapidly changing outside temperatures greatly affecting performance and efficiency.
Concrete is a composite material composed of coarse granular material the aggregate and/or filler embedded in a hard matrix of material the cement and/or binder that fills the space among the aggregate particles and glues them together. The word concrete comes from the Latin word “concretus” which means compact or condensed, the perfect passive participle of “concrescere”, from “con” which means together and “crescere” which means to grow.
Modern structural concrete differs from Roman concrete in two important details. First, its mix consistency is fluid and homogeneous, allowing it to be poured into forms rather than requiring hand-layering together with the placement of aggregate, which, in Roman practice, often consisted of rubble. Second, integral reinforcing steel gives modern concrete assemblies great strength in tension, whereas Roman concrete could depend only upon the strength of the concrete bonding to resist tension.
Concrete is widely used for making architectural structures, foundations, brick/block walls, pavements, bridges/overpasses, highways, runways, parking structures, dams, pools/reservoirs, pipes, footings for gates, fences and poles and even boats. Concrete is used in large quantities almost everywhere mankind has a need for infrastructure. The amount of concrete used worldwide in a ton for ton comparison is typically twice that of steel, wood, plastics, and aluminum combined. Concrete's use as a material commonly exceeds all others and is only exceeded by use of naturally occurring freshwater.
Concrete is also the basis of a large commercial industry. Globally, the ready-mix concrete industry, the largest segment of the concrete market, is projected to exceed $100 billion in revenue by 2015. Given the size of the concrete industry, and the fundamental way concrete is used to shape the infrastructure of the modern world, it is difficult to overstate the role this material plays today.
There are many types of concrete available, created by varying the proportions of the main ingredients below. In this way or by substitution for the cementitious and aggregate phases, the finished product can be tailored to its application with varying strength, density, or chemical and thermal resistance properties. “Aggregate” consists of large chunks of material in a concrete mix, generally a coarse gravel or crushed rocks such as limestone, or granite, along with finer materials such as sand. “Cement”, commonly Portland cement, and other cementitious materials such as fly ash and slag cement, serve as a binder or a Ligare for the aggregate.
Water is then mixed with this dry composite, which produces a semi-liquid that workers can shape (typically by pouring it into a form or mold). The concrete solidities and hardens to rock-hard strength through a chemical process called hydration. The water reacts with the cement, which bonds the other components together, creating a robust, sturdy and stone-like material. “Chemical admixtures” are added to achieve varied properties. These ingredients may speed or slow down the rate at which the concrete hardens, and impart many other useful properties. “Reinforcements” are often added to concrete. Concrete can be formulated with high compressive strength, but always has lower tensile strength. For this reason, it is usually reinforced with materials that are strong in tension (often steel or more recently with composites).
“Mineral admixtures” are becoming more popular in recent decades. The use of recycled materials as concrete ingredients has been gaining popularity because of increasingly stringent environmental legislation, and the discovery that such materials often have complimentary and valuable properties. The most conspicuous of these are fly ash, a by-product of coal-fired power plants, and silica fume, a byproduct of industrial electric arc furnaces. The use of these materials in concrete reduces the amount of resources required, as the ash and fume act as a cement replacement. The preferred method of the present invention uses gypsum and ash from desalination to monetize both applications and their associated efficiency over prior art. This displaces some cement production, an energetically expensive and environmentally problematic process, while reducing the amount of industrial waste that must be disposed of.
The required mixture depends on the type of structure or object being built, how the concrete is mixed and delivered, and how it is placed to form the structure or mold the object. Portland cement is the most common type of cement in general usage today for modern day construction. It is a basic ingredient of concrete, mortar and plaster. It consists of a mixture of oxides of calcium, silicon and aluminum. Portland cement and similar materials are made by heating limestone (a source of calcium) with clay and grinding this product (called clinker) with a source of sulfate (most commonly gypsum).
A brick is a block, or a single unit of a ceramic material used in masonry construction. Typically, bricks are stacked together or laid as brickwork using various kinds of mortar to hold the bricks together and make a permanent structure. Bricks are typically produced in common or standard sizes in bulk quantities. They have been regarded as one of the longest lasting and strongest building materials used throughout recorded history.
In the general sense, a “brick” is a standard-sized weight-bearing building unit. Bricks are laid in horizontal courses, sometimes dry and sometimes with mortar. When the term is used in this sense, the brick might be made from clay, lime-and-sand, concrete, or shaped stone. In a less clinical and more colloquial sense, bricks are made from dried earth, usually from clay-bearing subsoil. In some cases, such as adobe, the brick is merely dried. More commonly it is fired in a kiln of some sort to form a true ceramic. Prior art suffers from inefficiency during kiln process which is a substantial energy requirement. Prior art additionally was not able to benefit from which the preferred method of the present invention uses coils and heat exchangers to recover waste energy for enhanced efficiencies of all included thermal energy intensive application and processes. Prior art lacked thermal energy storage systems to benefit efficiency from thermal energy recovery and thermal energy reuse.
Prior art of brick and block making application and processes typically was never fully or partially automated due to its inherent design and deployment flaws. The preferred method of the present invention uses metrics, biometrics and thermal imaging technologies of analysis, monitoring and control of the brick making process using amalgamated with artificial intelligence and automation including robotics to reduce or eliminate injuries and enhanced uptime, productivity and enhanced volume.
Aluminum smelting is the process of extracting aluminum from its oxide, alumina, generally by the Hall-Héroult process however alumina is extracted from the ore bauxite by means of the Bayer process at an alumina refinery. This is an electrolytic process as such an aluminum smelter uses tremendous amounts of electrical energy; they tend to be located very close to huge energy generation stations, often hydro-electric ones. Additionally, they are located near ocean and seaports with a majority of smelter's use imported alumina. A very large amount of carbon is typically used in this process, often resulting in significant amounts of GHG emissions with carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide most prevalent. The preferred method of the present invention integration of emissions capture, sequestering and reuse creates an environmental friendly solution while reducing the carbon footprint over prior art.
Prior art defined a process called Hall-Héroult electrolysis which is the typical production route for primary process and commonly used method for aluminum production. This process uses an electrolysis cell which is typically made of a steel shell with a series of insulating linings of refractory materials. The cell consists of a brick-lined outer steel shell as a container and as support structure. Comprised within the shell, consists of cathode blocks are cemented together by ramming paste. Basis for the top of the cell lining is in contact with the molten metal which then acts as the cathode. The molten electrolyte must be maintained at high temperature inside the cell to prevent solidification. The prebaked anode is typically made of carbon, generally in the form of large sintered blocks suspended in the electrolyte. Typically, a single Soderberg type of electrode or a predetermined number of prebaked carbon blocks which are generally used as the anode, while the principal formulation and the fundamental reactions occurring on their surface are normalized for consistent energy distribution and production.
An aluminum smelter consists of a large number of cell and typically referred to as pots in which the electrolysis process takes place. A typical small smelter may contain anywhere from as little as 40 pots which may be used in small facilities and though the largest proposed smelters are up to sixty-five times that capacity which has approached near 2,500 pots in major smelting facilities, each pot typically produces approximately one ton of aluminum production a day. Smelting is operated as a batch process, with the aluminum metal deposited at the bottom of the pots and periodically transferred away for final processing. Energy supplies must be consistent and constantly available.
The hot blast temperature can be from 900° C. to 1300° C. (1600° F. to 2300° F.) depending on the stove design and condition. The temperatures they deal with may be 2000° C. to 2300° C. (3600° F. to 4200° F.). Oil, tar, natural gas, powdered coal and oxygen can also be injected into the furnace at a tuyere level in the furnace area to combine with the coke to release additional energy and increase the percentage of reducing gases present which is necessary to increase productivity. In the second stage, known as steelmaking, impurities such as sulfur, phosphorus, and excess carbon are removed and alloying elements such as manganese, nickel, chromium and vanadium are added to produce the exact steel required. Steel mills then turn molten steel into blooms, ingots, slabs and sheet through casting, hot rolling and cold rolling.
An integrated steel mill has all the functions for primary steel production: A) iron making (conversion of ore to liquid iron); B) steelmaking (conversion of pig iron to liquid steel), casting (solidification of the liquid steel); C) roughing rolling/billet rolling (reducing size of blocks); and D) product rolling (finished shapes). The principal raw materials for an integrated mill are iron ore, limestone, and coal (or coke) or a replacement carbon input. These materials are charged in batches into a blast furnace where the iron compounds in the ore give up excess oxygen and become liquid iron. At intervals of a few hours, the accumulated liquid iron is tapped from the blast furnace and either cast into pig iron or directed to other vessels for further steelmaking operations. Historically the Bessemer process was a major advancement in the production of economical steel, but it has now been entirely replaced by other processes such as the basic oxygen furnace.
Cast iron is iron or a ferrous alloy which has been heated until it liquefies, and is then poured into a mold to solidify. It is usually made from pig iron. The alloy constituents affect its color when fractured: white cast iron has carbide impurities which allow cracks to pass straight through. Grey cast iron has graphitic flakes which deflect a passing crack and initiate countless new cracks as the material breaks.
Carbon (C) and silicon (Si) are the main alloying elements, with the amount ranging from 2.1-4 wt % and 1-3 wt %, respectively. Iron alloys with less carbon content are known as steel. While this technically makes these base alloys ternary Fe—C—Si alloys, the principle of cast iron solidification is understood from the binary iron carbon phase diagram. Additionally, ceramics can be added for high performance alloy use. Since the compositions of most cast irons are around the eutectic point of the iron-carbon system, the melting temperatures closely correlate, usually ranging from 1,150 to 1,200° C. (2,100 to 2,190° F.), which is about 300° C. (572° F.) lower than the melting point of pure iron. The preferred method of the present invention to enhance efficiency communicating thermal energy from thermal energy storage for the purpose of preheating and heating the thermal intensive cast iron processes.
Cast iron tends to be brittle, except for malleable cast irons. With its relatively low melting point, good fluidity, capability, excellent machinability, resistance to deformation and wear resistance, cast irons have become an engineering material with a wide range of applications and are used in pipes, machines and automotive industry parts, such as cylinder heads (declining usage), cylinder blocks and gearbox cases (declining usage). It is resistant to destruction and weakening by oxidation (rust).
Enzymes are proteins, which act as catalysts. Enzymes lower the energy required for a reaction to occur, without being used up in the reaction. Many types of industries, to aid in the generation of their products, utilize enzymes. Examples of these products are; cheese, alcohol and bread. Fermentation is a method of generating enzymes for industrial purposes.
Fermentation involves the use of microorganisms, like bacteria and yeast to produce the enzymes. There are two methods of fermentation used to produce enzymes. These are submerged fermentation and solid-state fermentation. Submerged fermentation involves the production of enzymes by microorganisms in a liquid nutrient media. The enzymes are recovered by methods such as centrifugation, for extra-cellularly produced enzymes and lysing of cells for intracellular enzymes. Many industries are dependent or interdependent on enzymes for the production of their goods. Industries that use enzymes generated by fermentation are the brewing, wine making, baking, cheese production and other uses requiring breakdown of materials.
Corn milling process is approximately 20% of the annual corn harvest is currently used by industrial corn processors to produce a variety of products such as sweeteners, starches, oils, ethanol and animal feeds. The great majority of the remainder is fed to livestock, poultry & fish. This versatile grain is comprised of four primary components that make manufacturing of a variety of products and byproducts possible. Corn's typical components are Starch (61%), Corn oil (4%), Protein (8%) and Fiber (11%)—approximately 16% of the corn kernel's weight is moisture. The preferred embodiment involves corn wet milling as the primary method of processing and each method produces distinct products and feedstocks for co-products and their associated production.
While the wet milling process is capital intensive with potentially higher operating costs, the ability to produce a variety of products can be valuable offset in dealing with volatile markets. The wet milling process results in slightly lower ethanol yields than a traditional dry milling process since some of the fermentable starch exits the process attached to the saleable co-products.
The Corn wet-milling process is designed to extract the highest use and value proposition from each component of the corn kernel, the preferred method of the present invention comprises the process beginning with the corn kernels being soaked in large tanks called steep tanks in a dilute aqueous sulfur dioxide solution, additionally the preferred embodiment uses thermal energy input from storage to assist in softening corn kernels and to eliminate any bacteria that may be present that could contaminate and degrade further steps in the process. The softened kernel is then processed to remove the germ which is further processed to remove the high-value corn oil. The Germ Meal remaining after the oil is extracted and marketed for animal feed use.
Following germ removal, the remaining kernel components are separated to remove the fiber. The fiber is then combined with the evaporated, concentrated and dried steep liquor and other co-product streams to produce Corn Gluten Feed. The starch and gluten protein subsequently pass through the screens and the starch-gluten slurry is sent to centrifugal separators where the lighter gluten protein and the heavier starch are separated. The gluten protein is then concentrated and dried to produce Corn Gluten Meal, a 60% protein feed. Animal feeds corn gluten feed (CGF) and corn gluten meal (CGM). For purposes defined within CGF and its processed plankton (blue green algae) additives will be referred to as enhanced feed grains (EFG). The preferred method of the present invention incorporates using waste thermal energy and waste CO2 generation for plankton inputs which yields vertical markets compared to prior art expulsion of both with little or no reclamation or recycling to benefit the same.
Some of the starch is then washed and dried or modified and dried. These starch products are marketed to the food, paper, and textile industries. The remaining starch can be processed into products such as high fructose sweeteners or ethanol. Typically, an average bushel of corn yields 31.5 lbs. of Starch, 12.5 lbs. of Gluten Feed, 2.5 lbs. of Gluten Meal and 1.6 lbs. of Corn Oil.
Ethanol is considered a quasi-renewable energy source due to fact that the energy is partially generated by using a resource, sunlight, which cannot be depleted, it must be noted however that the planting, fertilizing and harvesting process requires vast amounts of energy that typically came from non-renewable sources.
Creation of ethanol starts with photosynthesis causing a feedstock, such as sugar cane or a grain such as maize (corn), or even switch grass to grow. These feedstocks are processed via milling or cellulosic processes into ethanol. It can be made from petroleum products via catalytic hydration of ethylene with sulfuric acid as the catalyst. Ethanol may also be obtained via ethylene or acetylene, from calcium carbide, coal, oil gas, and other sources. Petroleum derived nonrenewable based ethanol (synthetic ethanol) is chemically identical to bio-ethanol and can be differentiated only by radiocarbon dating.
Bio-ethanol is usually obtained from the conversion of carbon-based feedstock. Agricultural feedstocks are considered renewable because they get energy from the sun using photosynthesis, provided that all minerals required for growth (such as nitrogen and phosphorus) are returned to the land. Ethanol can be produced from a variety of feedstocks such as sugar cane, bagasse, Miscanthus, sugar beet, sorghum, grain, switchgrass, barley, hemp, kenaf, potatoes, sweet potatoes, cassava, sunflower, fruit, molasses, corn, Stover, grain, wheat, straw, cotton, other biomass, as well as many types of cellulose waste and harvestings, whichever has the best well-to-wheel assessment.
Carbon fiber is a type of woven carbon filament. For the rigid composite material made from carbon fiber used in aerospace and other applications are commonly combined composite formed by introduction of a Carbon fiber reinforced polymer matrix.
Prior art Carbon fiber, alternatively graphite fiber, carbon graphite or CF, is a material consisting of fibers typically about 5-10 μm in diameter and primarily composed mostly of carbon atoms. To produce carbon fiber, the carbon atoms are bonded together in crystals that are more or less aligned parallel to the long axis of the fiber as the crystal alignment gives the fiber high strength-to-volume ratio (making it strong for its size). Several thousand carbon fibers are bundled together to form a tow, which may be used by itself or woven into a fabric.
The properties of carbon fibers, such as high stiffness, high tensile strength, low weight, high chemical resistance, high temperature tolerance and low thermal expansion. Due to these advantages the popularity and growing interest is a groundswell of effort and investment, this stems from industries such as aerospace, civil engineering, military, and motorsports, along with host of other competition sports. It is worth while noting however that Carbon Fiber is relatively expensive when compared to similar fibers, such as glass fibers or plastic fibers.
Carbon fibers are usually combined with other materials to form an advanced composite material. When combined with a plastic resin and wound or molded it forms carbon fiber reinforced polymer (often referred to as carbon fiber) which has a very high strength-to-weight ratio usually compared to the characteristics of steel that is also extremely rigid although Carbon Fiber is somewhat brittle. Special note may be taken however that it can demonstrated that Carbon Fibers when composed with other materials, such as with graphite and graphene to form carbon-carbon composites, which have a very high heat tolerance. There are a host of other additives such as titanium and other bonding elements that can enhance the characteristics of the sought composite requirements.
A 6 μm diameter carbon filament can be compared to the diameter of a human hair. Each carbon filament thread is a bundle of many thousand carbon filaments. A single such filament is a thin tube with a diameter of 5-8 micrometers and consists almost exclusively of carbon. The atomic structure of carbon fiber is similar to that of graphite, consisting of sheets of carbon atoms (graphene sheets) arranged in a regular hexagonal pattern, the difference being in the way these sheets interlock. Graphite is a crystalline material in which the sheets are stacked parallel to one another in regular fashion. The intermolecular forces between the sheets are relatively weak Van der Waals forces, giving graphite its soft and brittle characteristics.
Depending upon the precursor to make the fiber, carbon fiber may be turbostratic or graphitic, or have a hybrid structure with both graphitic and turbostratic parts present. In turbostratic carbon fiber the sheets of carbon atoms are haphazardly folded, or crumpled, together. Carbon fibers derived from Polyacrylonitrile (PAN) are turbostratic, whereas carbon fibers derived from mesophase pitch are graphitic after heat treatment at temperatures exceeding 2200° C. Turbostratic carbon fibers tend to have high tensile strength, whereas heat-treated mesophase-pitch-derived carbon fibers have high Young's modulus (i.e., high stiffness or resistance to extension under load) and high thermal conductivity.
Carbon fiber is most notably used to reinforce composite materials, particularly the class of materials known as carbon fiber or graphite reinforced polymers. Non-polymer materials can also be used as the matrix for carbon fibers. Due to the formation of metal carbides and corrosion considerations, carbon has seen limited success in metal matrix composite applications. Reinforced carbon-carbon (RCC) consists of carbon fiber-reinforced graphite, and is used structurally in high-temperature applications. The fiber also finds use in filtration of high-temperature gases, as an electrode with high surface area and impeccable corrosion resistance, and as an anti-static component. Molding a thin layer of carbon fibers significantly improves fire resistance of polymers or thermoset composites because a dense, compact layer of carbon fibers efficiently reflects heat. The use of carbon fiber composites is commonly used as a direct replacement for aluminum from many commercial applications in favor of other metals because of galvanic corrosion issues.
Precursors for carbon fibers are polyacrylonitrile (PAN), rayon and pitch. Carbon fiber filament yarns are used in several processing techniques: the direct uses are for prepregging, filament winding, pultrusion, weaving, braiding, etc. Carbon fiber yarn is rated by the linear density (weight per unit length, i.e. 1 g/1000 m=1 tex) or by number of filaments per yarn count, in thousands. For example, 200 tex for 3,000 filaments of carbon fiber is three times as strong as 1,000 carbon filament yarn, but is also three times as heavy. This thread can then be used to weave a carbon fiber filament fabric or cloth. The appearance of this fabric generally depends on the linear density of the yarn and the weave chosen. Some commonly used types of weave are twill, satin and plain. Carbon filament yarns can also be knitted or braided.
Pyrolysis is the heating of an organic material, such as biomass, in the absence of oxygen. Pyrolysis is the chemical decomposition is induced in organic materials by heat in the absence of oxygen. Organic materials are transformed into gaseous components and a solid residue (coke) containing fixed carbon and ash. Typical Pyrolysis Process is formally defined as chemical decomposition induced in organic materials by heat in the absence of oxygen. In practice, it is not possible to achieve a completely oxygen-free atmosphere; actual pyrolytic systems are operated with less than stoichiometric quantities of oxygen. Because no oxygen is present the material does not combust but the chemical compounds (i.e. cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin) that make up that material thermally decompose into combustible gases and charcoal.
Most of these combustible gases can be condensed into a combustible liquid, called pyrolysis oil or bio-oil, though there are some permanent gases such as CO2, CO, H2, light hydrocarbons. Typically, pyrolysis of biomass produces three products: one liquid, bio-oil, one solid, bio-char and one gaseous (syngas). The proportion of these products depends on several factors including the composition of the feedstock and process parameters. Some oxygen will be present in any pyrolytic system, nominal oxidation will occur. If volatile or semi-volatile materials are present in the waste, thermal desorption will also occur. Pyrolysis is an emerging technology. Although the basic concepts of the process have been validated, the performance data for an emerging technology are not yet fully appreciated.
Bio-oil is a dense complex mixture of oxygenated organic compounds. It has a fuel value that is generally 50-70% that of petroleum bases fuels and can be used as boiler fuel or upgraded to renewable transportation fuels. Using the above method of the present invention consists of separation promoting pure product outputs with high quality when compared to convention bio-oil processed by prior art systems. It density is >1 kg L-1, much greater than that of biomass feedstock, making it more cost effective to transport than biomass.
All pyrolysis-based feedstock production follows the same basic pattern. It's similar in concept and chemistry to the epochal processes that produced petroleum, just taking place over a much shorter time. Biomass such as corn Stover, sawdust, or switch grass or other ag or biomass material is subjected to high pressure and heat in an oxygen-free atmosphere. The material decomposes, without combusting, into water plus carbon-rich gases, solids, and liquids.
The gas portion, mostly a mixture of H2 and CO called syngas, can be used as fuel or further processed into hydrocarbons. The solid, known as coke or char, is around 90% carbon and was usually and generally burned to provide heat for the process, the preferred method of the present invention uses renewable energy generational input whereas coke has a higher value usage when provided as the preferred base carbon product such as the coke in the combined steel and aluminum production and recycling facility. The liquid, known as pyrolysis oil, is a mixture of oxygenated hydrocarbons that can be chemically reduced to create a gasoline-like fuel.
Ethanol fermentation and pyrolysis aren't the only energy-related uses for biomass. Cogeneration can burn the material to generate steam turbine heat. Gasification can convert it into syngas, which can be processed into liquid fuels using Fischer-Tropsch chemistry, an expensive but established industrial process.
Pyrolysis generally yields a higher-value end product per pound of biomass than cogeneration and can be transformed to a liquid more cost effectively than gasification and liquefied to the quality of drop-in fuels and bio created lubrications. The preferred method of the present invention of renewable thermal energy for pyrolysis forms a primary solution for use of biomass for renewable lubrication and char and/or coke production and reduction and/or elimination of the need for use of fossil fuels for energy or as component feedstock required for modern chemical basis and production.
Pyrolysis of organic materials produces combustible gases, including carbon monoxide, hydrogen and methane, and other hydrocarbons. If the off-gases are cooled, liquids condense producing an oil/tar residue and contaminated water. Pyrolysis typically occurs under pressure and at operating temperatures above 430° C. (800° F.). The pyrolysis gases require further treatment. It should be noted that this thermal range is well within the range of solar thermal energy production range which would equate that no external energy generation would be needed using stored thermal energy as the energy input basis.
Conventional thermal treatment methods, such as rotary kiln, rotary hearth furnace, or fluidized bed furnace, are used for waste pyrolysis. Kilns or furnaces used for pyrolysis, potentially for incineration would be physically similar but would operate at lower temperature and with less air supply than would be required for combustion. Molten salt process may also be used for waste pyrolysis. These processes are described in the following sections:
Rotary Kiln
The rotary kiln is a refractory-lined, slightly-inclined, rotating cylinder that serves as a heating chamber.
Fluidized Bed Furnace
The circulating fluidized bed uses high-velocity air to circulate and suspend the waste particles in a heating loop and operates at temperatures up to 430° C. (800° F.).
Molten Salt Destruction
Molten-salt destruction is another type of pyrolysis. In molten-salt destruction, a molten salt incinerator uses a molten, turbulent bed of salt, such as sodium carbonate, as a heat transfer and reaction/scrubbing medium to destroy hazardous materials. Shredded solid waste is injected with air under the surface of the molten salt. Hot gases composed primarily of carbon dioxide, stream, and unreacted air components rise through the molten salt bath, pass through a secondary reaction zone, and through an emission gas recycle and cleanup system before discharging to the atmosphere. Other pyrolysis by-products react with the alkaline molten salt to form inorganic products that are retained in the melt. Spent molten salt containing ash is tapped from the reactor, cooled and recycled.
The word farming in the sense of an agricultural land-holding derives from the verb “to farm” a revenue source, whether taxes, customs, rents of a group of manors or simply to hold an individual manor by the feudal land tenure of “fee farm”. The word is from the medieval Latin noun “firma” meaning “a fixed agreement, contract”, from the classical Latin adjective “firmus” which means “strong, stout, firm.” In the medieval age, virtually all manors and major estates and noblemen were engaged in the business of agriculture, many included their own blacksmiths and other sub skill classes to provide bases to be supportive of their farming efforts which was typically a principal revenue source, as such to hold a manor and become a noblemen by the tenure of “fee farm” became synonymous with the practice of agriculture itself. Farm control and land ownership has traditionally been a key indicator of status and power, especially in Medieval European agrarian societies.
Typically, a farm is an area of land commonly referred to as agriculture or water commonly referred to as aquaculture, either of these may include various structures and substructures that are primarily devoted to the practice of producing and managing food (i.e. produce, grains, and animals such as livestock or aquatic species. It is the basic production facilities used for food production and or generation. Generally, a farm may be owned and operated by a single individual, family, community, corporation or a company. A typical farm can be a scale any size from a fraction of an acre to several or tens of thousands of acres.
A business producing tree fruits, berries, syrups or nuts is called an orchard; a vineyard produces grapes. The stable is used for operations principally involved in the training of horses. Stud and commercial farms breed and produce other animals and livestock. A farm that is primarily used for the production of milk, cream or cheese and other dairy products is typically called a dairy farm. Additional specialty farms include aquaponics which can be aeroponics or hydroponics for the growth of plants or aquaculture otherwise referred to as an aquatic farm or a fish farm, which would raise fish in pens and tanks to grow as a food source, and tree farms, which grow trees for sale for transplant, lumber, or decorative use.
Desalination, Distillation, Evaporator, Steel Mill, Mini Mill, Plastics and Polymer component production, Carbon Fiber production, Cast Iron production, TARDUS Defense system, Absorption Cooling, Cold Storage, Dry Storage, Fast Freeze System, Wind turbines, solar generators, thermal solar, photovoltaic solar, chemical and thermal energy storage, Stirling applications and processes, chiller, refrigeration, heating and air conditioning, water heating, distillation, water purification and desalination systems, electrical regeneration using various types of fuel, chemical and thermal sources in various designs and configurations for providing an energy generation responds to fulfill energy needs to include other processes and separation applications and processes are well known in prior art. It is envisioned that the electrical wiring, liquid, semi liquid and solid material transfer conduits may consist of conduits, ducts, pipes, hoses, pneumatic tubing, conveyer belts, or any means of connecting loops and circuits, conveying solid and/or semi-solid matter.
However, prior art of the above systems and devices, particularly when said referenced inventions are physically deployed they generally are not planned, established or orchestrated to benefit from higher efficiency as integral components as elements in an integrated multi-level control system environment by forming a complete and essential logical cycle or in otherwise would be referred to as an energy ecosystem, generally systems are planned for a deployment with an efficiency basis as an independent device with subpar system design performance.
Deployment of prior art had required higher part count, increased manufacturing costs, increased assembly costs, increased transportation costs, increased subpart count and more costly parts with larger custom parts inventory required, overlapping and duplicated subsystems, frequent problematic maintenance and repair costs, rising levelized cost of energy and products production, additionally causes higher operating expenses, grid energy connection and transfer line losses.
Prior art smart grid designs and integrations primarily use smart meters on consumer connections to monitor usage. Improving upon previous art of smart grid implementation of the current invention is effectuated via monitoring usage, identifying the energy usage sources through device data transmitting, manual consumer input and from its common electrical signal fingerprint, storing profile data sets, responding with appropriate energy assumptions from extracted usage profiles, analysis of time of day usage for enhanced energy load response for power quality and energy availability to enhance grid stability.
Wind energy technology is typically used to convert kinetic energy from wind into mechanical energy and/or electricity. To extract wind power, a wind turbine may include a rotor with a set of blades and a rotor shaft connected to the blades. Wind passing over the rotor connected blades may cause the blades to turn and the rotor shaft to rotate. In addition, the rotating rotor shaft may be coupled to a mechanical system that performs a mechanic task such as pumping water, atmosphere gas separation compressors, providing rotational energy to generate electricity. Alternatively, the rotor shaft may be connected to an electric generator that converts the rotational energy into electricity, which may subsequently be used to power a consumer, commercial or industrial device, and/or electrical grid.
Solar energy technology is typically used to convert radiated light energy from the sun into thermal energy and/or photovoltaic electricity. To extract solar power, a collection surface and/or reflector as is the case with thermal solar technologies to concentrate the solar energies on the aforementioned solar collector surface. Solar energy striking the collection surface is converted into photovoltaic generated electrical energy or as thermal generated heat for direct use, transfer and/or storage. However, the variable nature of wind and availability of solar energy may interfere with baseload and/or on-demand generation of electricity, generated products and byproducts from wind and solar energy. For example, energy storage using chemical and thermal techniques may be required to offset fluctuations in electricity, products and byproducts generated from wind and solar power and/or maintain reliable electric and or thermal energy provisioning service and/or in a private and public electrical grid.
Thermal Energy Storage (TES) can be provisioned via thermal energy transfer fluids and mediums generated from solar thermal and/or electrical and or chemical reaction collector systems and/or from thermal conversion is accomplished by action of chilling mechanisms, particularly special, non-compressors based, absorption chillers and other devices configured to absorb, dissipate or transfer thermal energy transference into low temperature thermal energy storage. Additionally, thermal energy can be generated via transference from a heating and/or cooling element or other derived application processes to initiate thermal conveyance to a medium, additionally as a method for electrical energy to thermal energy storage technique.
Thermal Energy On-Demand is made available from Thermal Energy Storage Systems pumping thermal transfer fluids for direct use as a thermal energy production of a service such as providing thermal energy for a space heating, water heater or other thermal intensive applications and operations can be used to cool other units and areas within units, such as water directed to the aquaculture unit or the atmosphere of the aeroponics unit, cold storage or fast freeze storage. This process can be conducted via fluid to thermal transfer device such as a Stirling engine and/or steam turbine and/or thermal intensive applications usage and/or through a secondary thermal transfer liquid for storage and reuse of waste thermal energy.
Commercial Grid Backup Energy Reserve also called commercial grid-scale energy storage refers to the methods used to store energy on a commercial grid scale within a commercial's energy power grid. Energy is stored during times when production from energy generation components exceeds localized energy consumption and the stores are used at times when consumption exceeds available baseload production or establishes a higher baseline energy requirement.
In this way, energy production need not be drastically sealed up and down to meet momentary consumption requirements, production levels are maintained at a more consistently stable level with improved energy quality. This has the advantage that energy storage-based power plants and/or thermal energy can be efficiently and easily operated at constant production levels.
In particular, the use of commercial grid-connected intermittent energy sources such as photovoltaic and thermal solar as well as wind turbines can benefit from commercial grid energy thermal storage. Energy derived from solar and wind sources are inherently variable by nature, meaning the amount of electrical energy produced varies with time, day of the week, season, and random environmental factors that occurs in the variability of the weather.
In an electrical power grid and/or thermal intensive systems with energy storage, energy sources that rely on energy generated from wind and solar must have matched commercial grid scale energy storage regeneration to be scaled up and down to match the rise and fall of energy production from intermittent energy sources. Thus, commercial grid energy storage is the one method that the commercial can use to adapt energy production to energy consumption, both of which can vary over time. This is done to increase efficiency and lower the cost of energy production and/or to integrate and facilitate the use of intermittent energy sources.
Thermal energy storage most commonly uses molten salt mixture as a high temperature transfer and storage medium which is used to store heat collected by a solar collection system, biogas generated thermal input or by electrical generated thermal storage injection. Thermal energy storage consisting of commonly available substances and storage mediums, for example water frozen into ice to store energy as a cold temperature storage medium.
Stored energy can be used to generate electricity or provide thermal energy during inadequate solar and/or wind energy generation availability or during extreme weather events. Thermal efficiencies over one year of 99% have been predicted. Thermal Energy Storage System has shown that the electricity into storage to electricity-out (round trip efficiency) in the range of 75 to 93% using enhanced energy recovery systems.
Prior art Stirling Radioisotope Generators (SRG), typically used free-piston Stirling engines coupled to alternators or a generator for the purpose of converting thermal energy to electricity. Stirling engines are a known heat engine that have higher efficiency than steam-based systems which can convert thermal energy into electricity. The RPS program is developing Stirling technology for possible use in future space missions. NASA had previously planned to complete development of two Advanced Stirling Radioisotope Generator (ASRG) units, unfortunately for energy development overall the decision to discontinue development of an ASRG system occurred in late 2013. NASA's Glenn Research Center continues development and testing of free piston type Stirling engine technology for potential use by current and future space exploration missions. Inside a free piston Stirling engine with linear generator, a moving piston is driven by the heat of a fuel source. The piston would move a magnet back and forth through a coil of wire as a linear generator to generate electrical current in the wire.
Because the process used to convert thermal energy into electricity, known as the Stirling cycle, is more efficient than the thermoelectric and photovoltaic solar powered systems, generators using Stirling technology could provide a more efficient means of producing power for spacecraft than existing power systems. Prior art implementations of ASRG and the original type of SRG prototypes typically demonstrated a much lower efficiency and lower power generation from inherent design flaws than can be achieved with the preferred embodiment of the present invention.
All buildings and targeted areas needing environmental control require controlled mechanical ventilation, or the function of controlled and purposeful introduction of outdoor air to the intended conditioned control space. Buildings, homes and controlled environmental areas intentionally seal buildings for a higher degree of air quality and environmental control. Most air quality standards and guidelines however specify that nearly 30% of the control area air space must be recirculated each hour. An air handler typically with an efficient fan will operate on a 33% minimum duty cycle including calls for heating and cooling. On average over the year, generally the fan cycling control will activate the fan about 15% of the time without coincident heating or cooling demand.
Past prior art and its implementation was generally mismatched components not planned nor integrated in such a way to eliminate material and component overlap, reducing efficiency and greatly increasing installation and maintenance costs. Building enclosures must be “built tightly sealed and then ventilated correctly for health, comfort and environmental ventilation requirements. To control an environmental control system, it must be an enclosed system and properly maintained. Eliminating leaks which cause pressure issues must be eliminated to allow easy control air flow exchange between the inside stale air and the outside fresh air source. It must be noted however that a tightly sealed building enclosure or control area requires both mechanical ventilation and pollutant and organism source control which are required to ensure that there is reasonable indoor air quality and removal of pollutants and allergens from inside the building, house or control area.
Heat recovery ventilation (HRV) and energy recovery ventilation (ERV) systems are ducted ventilation systems typically consisting of two fans—one to draw air in from outside and one to remove stale internal air. An air-to-air thermal energy exchanger commonly called a heat exchanger, generally installed in a roof space, recovers thermal energy from the internal air before it is discharged to the externally, and thermal exchanges with the incoming air with the recovered thermal energy.
Typically, environmental control systems effectuate changes to temperature, humidity and air quality of the ambient air within the controlled area. Such amalgamated systems include heating, cooling, dehumidification, humidification, ultra-violet light, air filtration and ventilation is generally inefficient and lacking in environmental quality. Furthermore, since some of the potential cooling power of the typical air-conditioner system is misused for dehumidification, the cooling capacity of the air conditioner is significantly reduced, and loaded performance is heavily degraded.
Prior art methods used isolated processes and applications of the various system with their mechanisms and their support components create instances such as there was an increase in capacities, but the overall performance of the system and its increased energy use efficiency was relatively poor.
Typically, in liquid desiccant type dehumidifier systems, moisture must be transferred from the cooled dehumidifier sump to the heated evaporator sump. Since the moisture is in the form of a low concentration desiccant, this is performed by pumping or otherwise transferring the desiccant. Since the desiccant also contains desiccant ions which acts as a drying agent it must be therefore returned to the cooled dehumidifier sump to maintain the desiccant ion level required for dehumidification. This is generally achieved in dehumidification mode by allowing sumps in the cooled dehumidifier sump and heated sump of the evaporator section that are interconnected via ducts with a common wall between the two sumps that constrains communications and only allows very controlled transfer and limited bidirectional flow to occur naturally while also forming a thermal stratification between the sumps without the need for pumps or other means of circulation.
Molten-carbonate fuel cells (“MCFC”) are high-temperature fuel cells that operate at temperatures of 600° C. and above. The high operating temperature of Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (“SOFC”) make SOFCs and MCFC's suitable candidates for application waste energy recovery and recycling for use with Stirling heat engines and absorption cooling or additional energy recovery devices or as combined cooling, freezing, heat and power system with optional rotational energy output, which further increases overall fuel and system efficiency.
In thermodynamics, the term endothermic describes a process or reaction in which the system absorbs energy from its surroundings in the form of heat. The term was coined by Marcellin Berthelot from the Greek roots “endo”, derived from the word “endon” which means “within” and the root “therm” which means “hot.” The intended use and sense is that of a reaction that depends on absorption or taking in heat if it is to proceed for work. The opposite of an endothermic process is an exothermic process, one that releases, “radiates” energy in the form of heat.
A SOFC is an exothermic electrochemical conversion device that produces electricity directly from oxidizing a fuel. Fuel cells are characterized by their electrolyte material; the SOFC has a solid oxide or ceramic, electrolyte. Advantages of this class of fuel cells include high efficiency, long-term stability, fuel flexibility, low emissions, relatively low system cost and with thermal energy generation for thermal waste energy recovery and potential for system efficiency gains. The largest potential disadvantage is the high operational temperatures which can result in longer start-up times along with mechanical and chemical compatibility issues. The preferred method of the present invention introduces thermal waste energy recovery, thermal storage and controlled energy communication for additional usage for enhanced efficiency, this will also reduce and potentially eliminate long startup times.
Solid oxide fuel cells are a class of fuel cells characterized by the use of a solid oxide material as the electrolyte. SOFCs use a solid oxide electrolyte to conduct negative oxygen ions from the cathode to the anode. The electrochemical oxidation of the oxygen ions with hydrogen or carbon monoxide thus occurs on the anode side. SOFC's typically operate at very high temperatures, typically between 500 and 1,000° C. Recent advances allow lower high range temperatures to be used such as the preferred embodiment of the present invention. At these temperatures, SOFCs do not require expensive noble metals such as a platinum catalyst material with its limited availability to initiate electrochemical reactions, as is currently necessary for lower-temperature extremely expensive fuel cells such as PEMFCs, and are not vulnerable to carbon monoxide catalyst poisoning but suffer from efficiency optimization, PEMFC's suffers from difficulties with exposure to freezing and moisture control system vulnerability, damage to the fuel cell from contaminations, expenses and efficiency loss from energy use from methods to remove impurities from atmospheric air input for oxygen supplies.
However, vulnerability to sulfur poisoning has been widely observed and the sulfur must be removed before entering the cell through the use of adsorbent beds or other means. The preferred method of the present invention may use hydroxyl ammonium nitrate and/or triethanol ammonium nitrate and/or a mixture of them to include water as the fuel input basis which has hydrogen and oxygen in its chemical matrix as a high-density fuel with relatively easy storage methods as a liquid fuel. Alternately a method of the present invention is use of the rotational energy for providing energy to pressure swing absorption device (PSA) or an air separation unit (ASU) which can use thermal input using distillation, an additional method would entail the use of absorbent or specific porous filter materials for the purpose of provisioning pure or nearly pure oxygen input to the fuel cell.
Solid oxide fuel cells have a wide variety of applications from use as auxiliary power units in vehicles to stationary power generation with outputs from 100 W to 20 MW achieving a near efficiency of a SOFC device up to the previously theoretical mark of 60% and exceeding that mark with the inclusion of preferred embodiment. The higher operating temperature make SOFCs suitable candidates for the preferred embodiment using application and processes to include a Stirling engine which is an endothermic device and amalgamated with an additional recovery device consisting primarily of an absorption cooling system to enable a system for combined cooling, freezing, heating and power functionality (CCFHP) with system integration to a unified analysis, monitor, control and energy provisioning system, which further increases overall system efficiency, redundancy and reliability.
A solid oxide fuel cell is made up of four layers, three of which are ceramics (hence the name). A single cell consisting of these four layers stacked together is typically only a few millimeters thick. Hundreds of these cells are then connected in series to form what most people refer to as an “SOFC stack”. The ceramics generally used in SOFCs do not become electrically and ionically active until they reach very high temperature and as a consequence the stacks have to run at temperatures ranging from 500 to 1,000° C. Reduction of oxygen into oxygen ions occurs at the cathode. These ions can then diffuse through the solid oxide electrolyte to the anode where they can electrochemically oxidize the fuel. In this reaction, a water byproduct is given off us well as two electrons. These electrons then flow through an external circuit where they can do work. The cycle then repeats as those electrons enter the cathode material again.
Typically, most of the downtime of a SOFC stems from the mechanical balance of plant, the air preheater, pre-reformer and/or ammonia cracker, afterburner, water heat exchanger, anode tail gas oxidizer, and electrical balance of plant, power electronics, hydrogen sulfide sensor and fans. Internal thermal energy generation from the SOFC for reforming and cracking leads to a large decrease in the balance of plant costs in designing and building of a full system. The planar fuel cell design geometry is the typical sandwich type geometry employed by most types of fuel cells, where the electrolyte is sandwiched in between the electrodes.
Concerning the ceramics primarily monolithic ceramics have attractive properties like high stiffness, strength, stability at high temperatures, making them useful for biomedical, electronic, automotive, industrial, defense and space applications. However, monolithic ceramics tend to be brittle, mechanically unreliable and poor electrical conductor, which limits their use. In order to improve these properties, ceramic matrix composites have been developed. There has been a considerable amount of research reported in the literature on fiber-ceramic composites.
Hydroxylamine nitrate has generally been produced by one of several processes utilizing hydroxylamine sulfate and converting it to the end product by processes such as electrodialysis or a cation-exchange process. Some processes produce aqueous hydroxylamine from hydroxylammonium sulfate. However, heretofore none have been found which produce the aqueous hydroxylamine salts by neutralization of the corresponding acid, without causing spontaneous decomposition upon addition of the concentrated acid. Conversely, addition of the hydroxylamine to nitric acid causes spontaneous decomposition of the product HAN, even when the nitric acid has been diluted to less than about 50% by weight.
Hydroxylamine nitrate has several commercial applications, such use as the component or one of the components of a liquid fuel. It is in this application a highly purified form of the compound is required, especially when it is to be employed as a fuel where the hydroxyl ammonium nitrate (HAN) solution is stable in an aqueous solution, but must be completely free of transition metal elements, such as iron and copper.
The hydroxylamine salt produced by the electrolytic processes of the prior art can be converted to hydroxylamine nitrate at low solution strength and in an impure state. The double displacement reaction employed requires an electrochemical cell that has a plurality of compartments and requires anion exchange membranes and/or bipolar membranes. The draw back and disadvantage of this design requires significant capital costs and extremely high energy costs.
Processing costs of desalinating sea water (infrastructure, energy and maintenance) are generally higher than the alternatives (fresh water from rivers, reservoirs, aquifers or groundwater, water recycling and water conservation techniques), but alternatives are not always applicable such as area effects from low rain fall, low snow accumulations and/or droughts. Expected water acquisition costs for 2013 range from 50 cents to 1 US dollar per cubic meter, chart in FIG. 1. Energy consumption of sea water desalination can be potentially as low as 3 kWh per cubic meter, this is similar to the energy consumption of existing fresh water supplies transported over extreme distances, but this does equate too much higher costs than typically seen with local fresh potable water supplies which use approximately 0.2 kWh or less per cubic meter when and if said water is available.
The laws of physics will determine minimum energy consumption for sea water desalination of approximately 1 kWh per cubic meter, this would exclude pre-filtering and intake/outfall pumping and post-filtering if necessary from heavier than normal contamination levels. Less than 2 kWh per cubic meter has been achieved with existing reverse osmosis membrane technology, leaving limited scope for further energy reductions. Estimated, supplying all domestic water by sea water desalination would increase US Domestic energy consumption by around 10%, which is approximately about the amount of energy used by a commonly used domestic refrigerator.
Distilling of Sea Water has been, by and large, extremely cost prohibitive, very precarious operational histories, and known to potentially be environmentally unfriendly. Both distillation and reverse osmoses systems return concentrated brine along with sometimes, other added chemicals used to de-foam, reduce scale or kill plant growth, to be disposed of, usually pumped back into the ocean increasing salinity and hot zones. These issues have caused great concern from the high potential for damage to the ocean environmental ecosystem. Prior art and other commonly used methods of making drinking water may potentially pose additional threats and the potential for damage which needs to also include the cost of disposing of the byproduct brine effluent. In addition to the environmental concerns that the desalinization process poses, the high costs and lack of availability of required energy sources associated with either distillation or Reverse Osmoses processes have essentially limited or eliminated the wide spread use. The preferred method of the present invention with its included processes and applications are embodied as an ocean or sea water distillation system, all of these concerns and issues are allayed or removed and open a vertical market for processed products are created enhancing financial viability.
The traditional process used in these operations is vacuum distillation which is essentially the boiling of water at less than atmospheric pressure and thus a much lower temperature than normal. This is because the phase change energy required for boiling of a liquid occurs when the vapor pressure equals the ambient pressure and vapor pressure increases with temperature. Thus, because of the reduced temperature, low-temperature “waste” heat from electrical power and in the preferred method of the present invention of “waste” thermal energy from Stirling engine generation or other thermal “waste” thermal energy from industrial processes can be reclaimed.
The principal competing processes use membranes to desalinate, principally applying reverse osmosis technology. Membrane processes use semipermeable membranes and pressure to separate salts from water. Reverse osmosis plant membrane systems typically use less energy than thermal distillation, which has led to a reduction in overall desalination costs over the past decade. Desalination remains energy intensive, however, and future costs will continue to depend on the price of both energy and desalination technology.
Quintuple-generation is the process of using excess thermal from energy generation for another task: in this case the production of potable water from seawater or brackish groundwater in an integrated, or “multi-purpose”, facility where a power plant provides the energy for desalination. Alternatively, the facility's energy production may be dedicated to the production of potable water (a stand-alone facility), or excess energy may be produced and incorporated into the energy grid (a true Quintuple-generation facility) or as the preferred method of present invention communicates excess thermal energy to thermal energy storage for later use.
Quintuple-generation takes various forms, and theoretically any form of energy production could be used. However, the majority of current and planned prior art and current day cogeneration type of desalination plants use either fossil fuels or nuclear power as their source of energy. The advantage of multi-purpose facilities is they can be more efficient in land use, energy consumption, thus making desalination a more viable option for potable drinking water.
Additionally, the current trend in multi-purpose facilities is in design of hybrid configurations, in which permeate from a reverse osmosis desalination component is mixed with distillate from thermal desalination. Basically, two or more desalination processes are combined along with power production, with the preferred method of the present invention even higher efficiencies, production yields and revenue streams can be achieved with inclusion and amalgamation of additional steps and stages with the associated processes and applications.
Factors that generally determine the costs for desalination include capacity and type of facility, location, feed water, labor, energy, financing, and concentrate disposal. Desalination stills now control pressure, temperature and brine concentrations to optimize efficiency. It is worth noting that costs are falling, and generally positive about the technology for affluent areas in proximity to oceans, desalinated water may be a solution for some water-stress areas.
Typically, with prior art desalination methods and processes produce large quantities of a concentrate, which may be increased in temperature, and contain residues of pretreatment and cleaning chemicals, their reaction byproducts, and heavy metals due to corrosion. Chemical pretreatment and cleaning are a necessity in most desalination plants, which typically includes the treatment against biofouling, scaling, foaming and corrosion in thermal plants, and against biofouling, suspended solids and scale deposits in membrane plants.
Prior art failed attempts to limit the environmental impact of returning the brine with its increased salinity and its increased temperature to the seas or oceans, attempts to dilute the concentrate and its temperature with another stream of water entering the ocean, such as the outfall of a wastewater treatment or power plant. While seawater power plant cooling water outfalls are not as fresh as wastewater treatment plant outfalls, salinity and temperature is only slightly reduced. With medium to large power plant and desalination plant, the power plant's cooling water flow is likely to be at least several times larger than that of the desalination plant. Another method to reduce the increase in salinity is to mix the brine via a diffuser in a mixing zone. For example, once the pipeline containing the brine reaches the sea floor, it can split into many branches, each releasing brine gradually through small holes along its length. Mixing can be combined with power plant or wastewater plant dilution.
Brine is denser than seawater due to higher solute concentration. The ocean bottom is most at risk because the brine with its increased salinity and temperature sinks and remains there long enough to damage the ecosystem. Careful reintroduction can minimize this problem but does not eliminate the damage to the environment. Prior art's typical oceanographic conditions off the coast allow for rapid dilution of the concentrated increased temperature byproduct, thereby only able to minimize the harm to the environment.
Some methods of desalination, particularly in combination with evaporation ponds and solar stills (solar desalination), do not discharge brine. They do not use chemicals in their processes nor the burning of fossil fuels. They do not work with membranes or other critical parts, such as components that include heavy metals, thus do not cause toxic waste (and high maintenance).
The disadvantage of this method is the salts and contaminants are leftover and will require cleanup and reclamation may also draw unwanted attention from environmental agencies to the waste buildup and potential damage from waste leaching into water tables. Currently, approximately 50% of the world's sea salt production still relies on fossil energy sources.
Multi-stage flash distillation (MSF) is a water desalination process that typically uses thermal energy to distill sea water by flashing a portion of the water into steam, typically this is done with multiple stages of what are essentially countercurrent regenerative heat exchangers. Multi-stage flash distillation plants generally produce about 60% of all desalinated water in the world.
The plant has a series of effect spaces also called stages, each containing a heat exchanger and a condensate collector. The sequence has a cold end and a hot end while intermediate stages have intermediate temperatures. The stages have different pressures corresponding to the boiling points of water at the stage temperatures. After the hot end there is a container called the brine heater. The preferred method of the present invention communicates required thermal energy from thermal storage with an as needed and on demand for multi-flash distillation energy input needs.
When the plant is operating in steady state, feed water at the cold inlet thermal temperature flows, or is pumped, through the heat exchangers in the stages and warms up via regeneration. When it reaches the brine heater it already has nearly the maximum temperature. In the brine heater, an amount of additional thermal energy is added. After the brine heater, the water flows through valves back into the stages which have ever lower pressure and temperature. As it flows back through the stages the water is now called concentrate otherwise generally referred to as brine, to distinguish it from the inlet water. In fact, at each stage, as the brine enters, its temperature is above the boiling point at the pressure of the stage, and a small fraction of the brine water boils (“flashes”) to steam thereby reducing the temperature until equilibrium is reached. The resulting steam is a little hotter than the feed water in the heat exchanger. The steam cools and condenses against the heat exchanger tubes, thereby heating the feed water as described earlier in a regenerative fashion enhancing operational efficiency.
The total evaporation in all the stages is up to approximately 15% of the water flowing through the system, depending on the range of temperatures used. With increasing temperature there are growing difficulties of scale formation and corrosion. 120° C. appears to be a maximum thermal energy input, although scale avoidance may require thermal input temperatures below 70° C.
The feed water carries away the excess latent heat of the condensed steam, maintaining the low temperature of the stage. The pressure in the chamber remains constant as equal amounts of steam is formed when new warm brine enters the stage and steam is removed as it condenses on the tubes of the heat exchanger. The equilibrium is quite stable, because if at some point more vapor forms, the pressure increases therefore reduces evaporation and increases condensation.
In the final stage the brine and the condensate has a temperature near the inlet temperature. The brine and condensate are then pumped out from the low-pressure field within the stage to the ambient pressure. The brine and condensate still carry a small amount of thermal energy that is recovered from the system when they are discharged via the regenerator. The thermal energy recovery helps make up for this loss.
The thermal energy added in the brine heater in prior art usually comes in the form of hot steam from an industrial process co-located with the desalination plant. The steam is allowed to condense against tubes carrying the brine. The preferred method uses a fluid medium due to the reduced loss from the enhanced density.
The energy that makes possible the evaporation is all present in the brine as it leaves the heater. The reason for letting the evaporation happen in multiple stages rather than a single stage at the lowest pressure and temperature, is that in a single stage, the feed water would only warm to an intermediate temperature between the inlet temperature and the heater, while much of the steam would not condense and the stage would not maintain the lowest pressure and temperature. Plants of this nature typically operate at 23-27 kWh per cubic meter which is approximately 90 MJ per cubic meter of distilled fresh water.
Because the colder salt water entering the process Countercurrent exchange otherwise referred to as a regenerator, counter flows with the saline waste water/distilled water, relatively little thermal energy leaves in the outflow—most of the heat is picked up by the colder saline water flowing toward the heater and the energy is recycled.
In addition, MSF distillation plants, especially large ones, are often paired with power plants in a cogeneration configuration. Waste heat from the power plant is used to heat the seawater, providing cooling for the power plant at the same time. This reduces the energy needed by one-half to two-thirds, which drastically alters the economics of the plant, since energy is by far the largest operating cost of MSF plants. Reverse osmosis, MSF distillation's main competitor, requires more pretreatment of the seawater and more maintenance, as well as energy in the form of work (electricity, mechanical power) as opposed to cheaper low-grade waste heat.
Multiple-effect distillation (MED) is a distillation process often used for sea water desalination. It consists of multiple stages or “effects”. In each stage the feed water is heated by steam in tubes. Some of the water evaporates, and this steam flows into the tubes of the next stage, heating and evaporating more water. Each stage essentially reuses the energy from the previous stage. The tubes can be submerged in the feed water, but more typically the feed water is sprayed on the top of a bank of horizontal tubes, and then drips from tube to tube until it is collected at the bottom of the stage.
The plant can be seen as a sequence of closed spaces separated by tube walls, with a heat source in one end and a heat sink in the other end. Each space consists of two communicating subspaces, the exterior of the tubes of stage (n) and the interior of the tubes in stage (n+1). Each space has a lower temperature and pressure than the previous space, and the tube walls have intermediate temperatures between the temperatures of the fluids on each side. The pressure in a space cannot be in equilibrium with the temperatures of the walls of both subspaces. It has an intermediate pressure. Then the pressure is too low or the temperature too high in the first subspace and the water evaporates. In the second subspace, the pressure is too high or the temperature too low and the vapor condenses. This carries evaporation energy from the warmer first subspace to the colder second subspace. At the second subspace the energy flows by conduction through the tube walls to the colder next space.
The thinner the metal in the tubes and the thinner the layers of liquid on either side of the tube walls, the more efficient is the energy transport from space to space. Introducing more stages between the heat source and sink reduces the temperature difference between the spaces and greatly reduces the heat transport per unit surface of the tubes. The energy supplied is reused more times to evaporate more water, but the process takes more time. The amount of water distilled per stage is directly proportional to the amount of energy transport. If the transport is slowed down, one can increase the surface area per stage, i.e. the number and length of the tubes, at the expense of increased installation cost.
Reverse osmosis plant is a processing plant where the process of reverse osmosis takes place. An average modern reverse osmosis plant needs six kilowatt-hours of electricity to desalinate one cubic meter of water. The process also results in an amount of salty briny waste. The challenge for these plants is to find ways to reduce energy consumption, use sustainable energy sources and improve the process of desalination and to innovate in the area of waste management to deal with the waste. Self-contained water treatment plants using reverse osmosis, called reverse osmosis water purification units, are normally used in a military context.
Reverse osmosis (RO) is a water purification technology that uses a semipermeable membrane. This membrane-technology is not properly a filtration method. In RO, an applied pressure is used to overcome osmotic pressure, a colligative property that is driven by chemical potential, a thermodynamic parameter. RO can remove many types of molecules and ions from solutions and is used in both industrial processes and in producing potable water. The result is that the solute is retained on the pressurized side of the membrane and the pure solvent is allowed to pass to the other side. To be “selective,” this membrane should not allow large molecules or ions through the pores (holes), but should allow smaller components of the solution (such as the solvent) to pass freely.
In the normal osmosis process, the solvent naturally moves from an area of low solute concentration (High Water Potential), through a membrane, to an area of high solute concentration (Low Water Potential). The movement of a pure solvent is driven to reduce the free energy of the system by equalizing solute concentrations on each side of a membrane, generating osmotic pressure. Applying an external pressure to reverse the natural flow of pure solvent, thus, is reverse osmosis. The process is similar to other membrane technology applications. However, there are key differences between reverse osmosis and filtration. The predominant removal mechanism in membrane filtration is straining, or size exclusion, so the process can theoretically achieve perfect exclusion of particles regardless of operational parameters such as influent pressure and concentration. Moreover, reverse osmosis involves a diffusive mechanism so that separation efficiency is dependent on solute concentration, pressure, and water flux rate. Reverse osmosis is most commonly known for its use in drinking water purification from seawater, removing the salt and other effluent materials from the water molecules.
Osmosis is a natural process. When two liquids of different concentration are separated by a semipermeable membrane, the fluid has a tendency to move from low to high solute concentrations for chemical potential equilibrium. Formally, reverse osmosis is the process of forcing a solvent from a region of high solute concentration through a semipermeable membrane to a region of low solute concentration by applying a pressure in excess of the osmotic pressure. The largest and most important application of reverse osmosis is the separation of pure water from seawater and brackish waters; seawater or brackish water is pressurized against one surface of the membrane, causing transport of salt-depleted water across the membrane and emergence of potable drinking water from the low-pressure side.
The membranes used for reverse osmosis have a dense layer in the polymer matrix—either the skin of an asymmetric membrane or an interfacial polymerized layer within a thin-film-composite membrane—where the separation occurs. In most cases, the membrane is designed to allow only water to pass through this dense layer, while preventing the passage of solutes (such as salt ions). This process requires that a high pressure be exerted on the high concentration side of the membrane, usually 2-17 bar (30-250 psi) for fresh and brackish water, and 40-82 bar (600-1200 psi) for seawater, which has around 27 bar (390 psi) natural osmotic pressure that must be overcome. This process is best known for its use in desalination (removing the salt and other minerals from sea water to get fresh water), but it has also been used to purify fresh water for medical, industrial, and domestic applications.
In modern cement kilns many advanced features are used to lower the fuel consumption per ton of clinker produced. Cement kilns are extremely large, complex, and inherently dirty industrial installations, and have many undesirable emissions. Of the various ingredients used in concrete the cement is the most energetically expensive. Even complex and efficient kilns require 3.3 to 3.6 gigajoules of energy to produce a ton of clinker and then grind it into cement. Many kilns can be fueled with flammable wastes with the most commonly used fuel source being used tires. The extremely high temperatures and long periods of time at those temperatures allow cement kilns to efficiently and completely burn even difficult-to-use fuels.
In recent years, alternatives have been developed to help replace cement. Products such as PLC (Portland Limestone Cement) which incorporate limestone as a material replacement into the mixture of materials, are currently being tested and evaluated. This is primarily due to cement production being one of the largest predicted producers (at about 5 to 10%) of global greenhouse gas emissions. Combining water with a cementitious type material forms a cement paste by the process of hydration. The cement paste glues the aggregate mixture together, fills voids any contained within the mixture, and makes it flow more freely. A lower water-to-cement ratio yields a stronger, more durable concrete, while more water gives a freer-flowing concrete with a higher slump. Pure water is required to be used to make concrete to eliminate bonding problems when setting or as a cause of premature failure of the object or structure. Hydration involves many different reactions, often occurring simultaneously at the same time. As the reactions proceed, the products of the cement hydration process gradually bond together the individual sand and gravel particles and other components of the concrete to form a warm solid yet soft object or structure.
Decorative stones such as quartzite, small river stones or crushed glass are sometimes added to the surface of concrete for a decorative “exposed aggregate” finish, popular among landscape designers while allowing the cement product to be decorative, exposed aggregate adds robustness to a concrete walks, driveway and walls.
Concrete is strong in compression, as the aggregate efficiently carries the compression load. However, it is weak in tension as the cement holding the aggregate in place can crack, allowing the structure to fail. Reinforced concrete may add steel reinforcing bars, steel fibers, glass fiber, carbon fiber, composite fiber or plastic fiber to carry tensile loads. Use of these additives will be permanently embedded in poured concrete to create a reinforced concrete structure.
Chemical admixtures are materials in the form of powder or fluids that are added to the concrete to give it certain characteristics not obtainable with plain concrete mixes. In normal use, admixture dosages are less than 5% by mass of cement and are added to the concrete at the time of batching-mixing. Accelerators speed up the hydration (hardening) of the concrete. Typical materials used are Ca(NO3)2 and NaNO3. Retarders slow the hydration of concrete and are used in large or difficult pours where partial setting before the pour is complete is undesirable. Typical polyol retarders are sugar, sucrose, sodium gluconate, glucose, citric acid, and tartaric acid.
Air entrainments add and entrain tiny air bubbles in the concrete, which reduces damage during freeze-thaw cycles, increasing durability. However, entrained air entails a trade off with strength, as each 1% of air may decrease compressive strength 5%. Plasticizers increase the workability of plastic or “fresh” concrete, allowing it to be placed more easily, with less consolidating effort. A typical plasticizer is lignosulfonate. Plasticizers can be used to reduce the water content of a concrete while maintaining workability and are sometimes called water-reducers due to this use. Such treatment improves its strength and durability characteristics. Superplasticizers (also called high-range water-reducers) are a class of plasticizers that have fewer deleterious effects and can be used to increase workability more than is practical with traditional plasticizers. Compounds used as superplasticizers include sulfonated naphthalene formaldehyde condensate, sulfonated melamine formaldehyde condensate, acetone formaldehyde condensate and polycarboxylate ethers.
Pigments can be used to change the color of concrete, for aesthetics. Corrosion inhibitors are used to minimize the corrosion of steel and steel bars in concrete. Bonding agents are used to create a bond between old and new concrete (typically a type of polymer). Pumping aids improve pumpability, thicken the paste and reduce separation and bleeding
There are inorganic materials that also have pozzolanic or latent hydraulic properties. These very fine-grained materials are added to the concrete mix to improve the properties of concrete (mineral admixtures), or as a replacement for Portland cement (blended cements).
Fly ash: A by-product of coal-fired electric generating plants, it is used to partially replace Portland cement (by up to 60% by mass). The properties of fly ash depend on the type of coal burnt. In general, siliceous fly ash is pozzolanic, while calcareous fly ash has latent hydraulic properties.
Concrete plant facility showing a Concrete mixer being filled from the ingredient silos. Concrete production is the process of mixing together the various ingredients—water, aggregate, cement, and any additives to produce concrete. Concrete production is time-sensitive. Once the ingredients are mixed, workers must put the concrete in place before it hardens. In modern usage, most concrete production takes place in a large type of industrial facility called a concrete plant, or often a batch plant.
In general usage, concrete plants come in two main types, ready mix plants and central mix plants. A ready-mix plant mixes all the ingredients except water, while a central mix plant mixes all the ingredients including water. A central mix plant offers more accurate control of the concrete quality through better measurements of the amount of water added, but must be placed closer to the work site where the concrete will be used, since hydration begins at the plant.
A concrete plant consists of large storage hoppers for various reactive ingredients like cement, storage for bulk ingredients like aggregate and water, mechanisms for the addition of various additives and amendments, machinery to accurately weigh, move, and mix some or all of those ingredients, and facilities to dispense the mixed concrete, often to a concrete mixer truck.
Modern concrete is usually prepared as a viscous fluid, so that it may be poured into forms, which are containers erected in the field to give the concrete its desired shape. There are many different ways in which concrete formwork can be prepared, such as Slip forming and Steel plate construction. Alternatively, concrete can be mixed into dryer, non-fluid forms and used in factory settings to manufacture precast concrete products.
There is a wide variety of equipment for processing concrete, from hand tools to heavy industrial machinery. Whichever equipment builders use; however, the objective is to produce the desired building material; ingredients must be properly mixed, placed, shaped, and retained within time constraints. Once the mix is where it should be, the curing process must be controlled to ensure that the concrete attains the desired attributes. During concrete preparation, various technical details may affect the quality and nature of the product.
When initially mixed, Portland cement and water rapidly form a gel of tangled chains of interlocking crystals, and components of the gel continue to react over time. Initially the gel is fluid, which improves workability and aids in placement of the material, but as the concrete sets, the chains of crystals join into a rigid structure, counteracting the fluidity of the gel and fixing the particles of aggregate in place. During curing, the cement continues to react with the residual water in a process of hydration. In properly formulated concrete, once this curing process has terminated the product has the desired physical and chemical properties. Among the qualities typically desired, are mechanical strength, low moisture permeability, and chemical and volumetric stability.
Thorough mixing is essential for the production of uniform, high-quality concrete. For this reason, equipment and methods should be capable of effectively mixing concrete materials containing the largest specified aggregate to produce uniform mixtures of the lowest slump practical for the work.
Separate paste mixing has shown that the mixing of cement and water into a paste before combining these materials with aggregates can increase the compressive strength of the resulting concrete. The paste is generally mixed in a high-speed, shear-type mixer at a w/cm (water to cement ratio) of 0.30 to 0.45 by mass. The cement paste premix may include admixtures such as accelerators or retarders, superplasticizers, pigments, or silica fume. The premixed paste is then blended with aggregates and any remaining batch water and final mixing is completed in conventional concrete mixing equipment.
High-energy mixed (HEM) concrete is produced by means of high-speed mixing of cement, water and sand with net specific energy consumption of at least 5 kilojoules per kilogram of the mix. A plasticizer or a superplasticizer is then added to the activated mixture, which can later be mixed with aggregates in a conventional concrete mixer. In this process, sand provides dissipation of energy and creates high-shear conditions on the surface of cement particles. This results in the full volume of water interacting with cement. The liquid activated mixture can be used by itself or foamed (expanded) for lightweight concrete. HEM concrete hardens in low and subzero temperature conditions and possesses an increased volume of gel, which drastically reduces capillarity in solid and porous materials.
Workability is the ability of a fresh (plastic) concrete mix to fill the form-mold properly with the desired work (vibration) and without reducing the concrete's quality. Workability depends on water content, aggregate (shape and size distribution), cementitious content and age (level of hydration) and can be modified by adding chemical admixtures, like superplasticizer. Raising the water content or adding chemical admixtures increases concrete workability. Excessive water leads to increased bleeding (surface water) and/or segregation of aggregates (when the cement and aggregates start to separate), with the resulting concrete having reduced quality. The use of an aggregate with an undesirable gradation can result in a very harsh mix design with a very low slump, which cannot readily be made more workable by addition of reasonable amounts of water.
Workability can be measured by the concrete slump test, a simplistic measure of the plasticity of a fresh batch of concrete test standards. Slump is normally measured by filling an “Abrams cone” with a sample from a fresh batch of concrete. The cone is placed with the wide end down onto a level, non-absorptive surface. It is then filled in three layers of equal volume, with each layer being tamped with a steel rod to consolidate the layer. When the cone is carefully lifted off, the enclosed material slumps a certain amount, owing to gravity. A relatively dry sample slumps very little, having a slump value of one or two inches (25 or 50 mm) out of one foot (305 mm). A relatively wet concrete sample may slump as much as eight inches. Workability can also be measured by the flow table test.
Slump can be increased by addition of chemical admixtures such as plasticizer or superplasticizer without changing the water-cement ratio. Some other admixtures, especially air-entraining admixture, can increase the slump of a mix. High-flow concrete, like self-consolidating concrete, is tested by other flow-measuring methods. One of these methods includes placing the cone on the narrow end and observing how the mix flows through the cone while it is gradually lifted. After mixing, concrete is a fluid and can be pumped to the exact location where needed. Concrete has relatively high compressive strength, but much lower tensile strength. For this reason, it is usually reinforced with materials that are strong in tension (often steel and most recently use of composites). The elasticity of concrete is relatively constant at low stress levels but starts decreasing at higher stress levels as matrix cracking develops. Concrete has a very low coefficient of thermal expansion and shrinks as it matures. All concrete structures crack to some extent, due to shrinkage and tension. Concrete that is subjected to long-duration forces is prone to creep.
Tests can be performed to ensure that the properties of concrete correspond to specifications for the application. Different mixes of concrete ingredients produce different strengths, which are measured in psi or MPa. Different strengths of concrete are used for different purposes. Very low-strength (2000 psi or less) concrete may be used when the concrete must be lightweight. Lightweight concrete is often achieved by adding air, foams, or lightweight aggregates, with the side effect that the strength is reduced. For most routine uses, 3000-psi to 4000-psi concrete is often used. 5000-psi concrete is readily commercially available as a more durable, although more expensive, option. 5000-psi concrete is often used for larger civil projects. Strengths above 5000 psi are often used for specific building elements. For example, the lower floor columns of high-rise concrete buildings may use concrete of 12,000 psi or more, to keep the size of the columns small. Bridges may use long beams of 10,000 psi concrete to lower the number of spans required. Occasionally, other structural needs may require high-strength concrete. If a structure must be very rigid, concrete of very high strength may be specified, even much stronger than is required to bear the service loads. Strengths as high as 19,000 psi have been used commercially for these reasons.
Modern clay bricks are formed in one of three processes—soft mud, dry press, or extruded. Normally, brick contains the following ingredients: Silica (sand)—50% to 60% by weight, Alumina (clay)—20% to 30% by weight, Lime—2 to 5% by weight, Iron oxide—≤7% by weight, Magnesia—less than 1% by weight
The soft mud method is the most common, as it is the most economical. It starts with the raw clay, preferably in a mix with 25-30% sand to reduce shrinkage. The clay is first ground and mixed with water to the desired consistency. The clay is then pressed into steel molds with a hydraulic press. The shaped clay is then fired (“burned”) at 900-1000° C. to achieve strength. The preferred method of the present invention communicates thermal energy from thermal storage for the purpose of providing thermal energy for preheating and heating the kiln for the firing process.
In modern brickworks, this is usually done in a continuously fired tunnel kiln, in which the bricks are fired as they move slowly through the kiln on conveyors, rails, or kiln cars, which achieves a more consistent brick product. The bricks often have lime, ash, and organic matter added, which accelerates the burning process.
An oval or circular trench is dug, 6-9 meteres wide, 2-2.5 meters deep, and 100-150 meters in circumference. A tall exhaust chimney is constructed in the center. Half or more of the trench is filled with “green” (unfired) bricks which are stacked in an open lattice pattern to allow airflow. The lattice is capped with a roofing layer of finished brick. In operation, new green bricks, along with roofing bricks, are stacked at one end of the brick pile; cooled finished bricks are removed from the other end for transport to their destinations. In the middle, the brick workers create a firing zone by dropping fuel (coal, wood, oil, debris, and so on) through access holes in the roof above the trench.
The advantage of the above design is a much greater energy efficiency compared with clamp or scove kilns. Sheet metal or boards are used to route the airflow through the brick lattice so that fresh air flows first through the recently bunted bricks, heating the air, then through the active burning zone. The air continues through the green brick zone (pre-heating and drying the bricks), and finally out the chimney, where the rising gases create suction which pulls air through the system. The reuse of heated air yields savings in fuel cost.
The dry press method is similar to the soft mud brick method, but starts with a much thicker clay mix, so it forms more accurate, sharper-edged bricks. The greater force in pressing and the longer burn make this method more expensive.
European-style extruded bricks or blocks are used in single-wall construction with finishes applied on the inside and outside. Their many voids comprise a greater proportion of the volume than the solid, thin walls of fired clay. Such bricks are made in 15-, 25-, 30-, 42- and 50-cm widths. Some models have very high thermal insulation properties, making them suitable for zero-energy buildings.
The raw materials for calcium-silicate bricks include lime mixed with quartz, crushed flint or crushed siliceous rock together with mineral colorants. The materials are mixed and left until the lime is completely hydrated; the mixture is then pressed into molds and cured in an autoclave for two or three hours to speed the chemical hardening. The finished bricks are very accurate and uniform, although the sharp arrises need careful handling to avoid damage to brick (and bricklayer). The bricks can be made in a variety of colors; white is common but pastel shades can be achieved. This type of brick is common in Sweden, especially in houses built or renovated in the 1970s, where it is known as “Mexitegel” (Mexi Bricks). In India these are known as fly ash bricks, manufactured using the FaL-G (fly ash, lime and gypsum) process. Calcium-silicate bricks are also manufactured in Canada and the United States, and meet the criteria set forth in ASTM C73-10 Standard Specification for Calcium Silicate Brick (Sand-Lime Brick). It has lower embodied energy than cement based man-made stone and clay brick.
The fired color of clay bricks is influenced by the chemical and mineral content of the raw materials, the firing temperature, and the atmosphere in the kiln. For example, pink colored bricks are the result of a high iron content, white or yellow bricks have a higher lime content. Most bricks burn to various red hues; as the temperature is increased the color moves through dark red, purple and then to brown or grey at around 1,300° C. (2,372° F.). Calcium silicate bricks have a wider range of shades and colors, depending on the colorants used. The names of bricks may reflect their origin and color, such as London stock brick and Cambridgeshire White.
“Bricks” formed from concrete are usually termed blocks, and are typically pale grey in color. They are made from a dry, small aggregate concrete which is formed in steel molds by vibration and compaction in either an “egg-layer” or static machine. The finished blocks are cured rather than fired using low-pressure steam. Concrete blocks are manufactured in a much wider range of shapes and sizes than clay bricks and are also available with a wider range of face treatments—a number of which simulate the appearance of clay bricks.
Natural stone bricks are of limited modern utility due to their enormous comparative mass, the consequent foundation needs, and the time-consuming and skilled labor needed in their construction and laying. They are very durable and considered more handsome than clay bricks by some. Only a few stones are suitable for bricks. Common materials are granite, limestone and sandstone. Other stones may be used (for example, marble, slate, quartzite, and so on) but these tend to be limited to a particular locality.
For efficient handling and laying, bricks must be small enough and light enough to be picked up by the bricklayer using one hand (leaving the other hand free for the trowel). Bricks are usually laid flat and as a result the effective limit on the width of a brick is set by the distance which can conveniently be spanned between the thumb and fingers of one hand, normally about four inches (about 100 mm). In most cases, the length of a brick is about twice its width, about eight inches (about 200 mm) or slightly more. This allows bricks to be laid bonded in a structure which increases stability and strength (for an example, see the illustration of bricks laid in English bond, at the head of this article). The wall is built using alternating courses of stretchers, bricks laid length-wise, and headers, bricks laid width-wise. The headers tie the wall together over its width. In fact, this wall is built in a variation of English bond called English cross bond where the successive layers of stretchers are displaced horizontally from each other by half a brick length. In true English bond, the perpendicular lines of the stretcher courses are in line with each other.
A bigger brick makes for a thicker (and thus more insulating) wall. Historically, this meant that bigger bricks were necessary in colder climates while a smaller brick was adequate, and more economical, in warmer regions. Nowadays this is no longer an issue, as modern walls typically incorporate specialized insulation materials. Bricks are used for building, block paving and pavement. In the USA, brick pavement was found incapable of withstanding heavy traffic, but it is coming back into use as a method of traffic calming or as a decorative surface in pedestrian precincts. Bricks in the metallurgy and glass industries are often used for lining furnaces, in particular refractory bricks such as silica, magnesia, chamotte and neutral (chromo-magnesite) refractory bricks. This type of brick must have good thermal shock resistance, refractoriness under load, high melting point, and satisfactory porosity. The correct brick for a job can be selected from a choice of color, surface texture, density, weight, absorption and pore structure, thermal characteristics, thermal and moisture movement, and fire resistance.
In the process of steel production and because of the energy cost and structural stress associated with heating and cooling a blast furnace, typically these primary steelmaking vessels will operate on a continuous production campaign of several years duration. Even during periods of low steel demand, it may not be feasible to let the blast furnace grow cold, though some adjustment of the production rate is possible. Integrated mills are large facilities that are typically only economical to build in 2,000,000 ton per year annual capacity and up. Final products made by an integrated plant are usually large structural sections, heavy plate, strip, wire rod, railway rails, and occasionally long products such as bars and pipe.
Cast iron is made by re-melting pig iron, often along with substantial quantities of scrap iron, scrap steel, lime stone, carbon (coke) and taking various steps to remove undesirable contaminants. Phosphorus and sulfur may be burnt out of the molten iron, but this also burns out the carbon, which must be replaced. Depending on the application, carbon and silicon content are adjusted to the desired levels, which may be anywhere from 2-3.5% and 1-3% respectively. Other elements are then added to the melt before the final form is produced by casting. Iron is sometimes melted in a special type of blast furnace known as a cupola, but more often melted in electric induction furnaces or electric arc furnaces.
After melting is complete, the molten iron is poured into a holding furnace or ladle. The preferred method of the present invention stems from using thermal energy communicated from thermal energy storage to enhance energy efficiency, additional efficiency can be obtained with the preferred method of the present invention recycling and recover of waste heat through use of heat exchangers and coils near the furnace to collect the waste thermal energy for communication to storage.
Cast iron's properties are changed by adding various alloying elements, or alloyants. Next to carbon, silicon is the most important alloyant because it forces carbon out of solution. The only over very important alloy is inclusion of ceramic which makes for a very high performance alloy combination with the silicon which is commonly used in cylinders and other high performance applications. Instead the carbon forms graphite which results in a softer iron, reduces shrinkage, lowers strength, and decreases density. Sulfur, when present, forms iron sulfide, which prevents the formation of graphite and increases hardness. The problem with sulfur is that it makes molten cast iron sluggish, which causes short run defects. To counter the effects of sulfur, manganese is added because the two form into manganese sulfide instead of iron sulfide. The manganese sulfide is lighter than the melt, so it tends to float out of the melt and into the slag.
Grey cast iron is characterized by its graphitic microstructure, which causes fractures of the material to have a grey appearance. It is the most commonly used cast iron and the most widely used cast material based on weight. Most cast irons have a chemical composition of 2.5-4.0% carbon, 1-3% silicon, and the remainder is iron. Grey cast iron has less tensile strength and shock resistance than steel, but its compressive strength is comparable to low and medium carbon steel.
White cast iron is a type of cast iron that displays white fractured surface due to the presence of cementite. With a lower silicon content (graphitizing agent) and faster cooling rate, the carbon in white cast iron precipitates out of the melt as the metastable phase cementite, Fe3C, rather than graphite. The cementite which precipitates from the melt forms as relatively large particles, usually in a eutectic mixture, where the other phase is austenite (which on cooling might transform to martensite).
Malleable iron starts as a white iron casting that is then heat treated at about 900° C. (1,650° F.). The preferred method of the present invention stems from using thermal energy communicated from thermal energy storage to enhance energy efficiency. Graphite separates out much more slowly in this case, so that surface tension has time to form it into spheroidal particles rather than flakes. Due to their lower aspect ratio, spheroids are relatively short and far from one another, and have a lower cross section vis-a-vis a propagating crack or phonon. They also have blunt boundaries, as opposed to flakes, which alleviates the stress concentration problems faced by grey cast iron. In general, the properties of malleable cast iron are more like mild steel. There is a limit to how large a part can be cast in malleable iron, since it is made from white cast iron.
Ductile east iron or nodular is a more recent development. Minute amounts of magnesium or cerium added to these alloys slow down the growth of graphite precipitates by bonding to the edges of the graphite planes. Strict control of other elements and timing, allows the carbon to separate as spheroidal particles as the material solidifies. The properties are similar to malleable iron, but parts may be able to cast with considerably larger molded sections.
Converting captured and sequestered CO2 into products such as chemicals, plastics, fuels, building materials, and other commodities is both an environmental friendly method and economically advantageous. Incorporation into existing polymer (plastics) formulations results in packaging foams with higher tensile strength and load-bearing capacity, and adhesives and coatings with improved adhesion, cohesive strength, and “weatherabilty” properties, such as UV- and water-resistance. Capital requirements and operational costs to produce the non-fossil fuels polymers closely mirror conventional production costs, and the products demonstrate increased strength and environmental resistance relative to existing polymers. The production scope is a diverse range of applications, including flexible, rigid, and microcellular packaging foams, thermoplastics, polyurethane adhesives and sealants, and coating resins for food and beverage cans.
Each carbon filament is produced from a precursor polymer such as polyacrylonitrile (PAN), rayon, or petroleum pitch. For synthetic polymers such as PAN or rayon, the precursor is first spun into filament yarns, using chemical and mechanical processes to initially align the polymer atoms in a way to enhance the final physical properties of the completed carbon fiber. Precursor compositions and mechanical processes used during spinning filament yarns may vary among manufacturers. After drawing or spinning, the polymer filament yarns are then heated to drive off non-carbon atoms (carbonization), producing the final carbon fiber.
The carbon fibers filament yarns may be further treated to improve handling qualities, and then wound on to bobbins. Synthesis of carbon fiber from Polyacrylonitrile (PAN) 1) Polymerization of acrylonitrile to PAN 2) Cyclization during low temperature process 3) High temperature oxidative treatment of carbonization (hydrogen is removed). Following this process, graphitization starts when nitrogen is removed and chains are joined into graphite planes. A common method of manufacture involves heating the spun PAN filaments to approximately 300° C. in air, which breaks many of the hydrogen bonds and oxidizes the material.
The oxidized PAN is then placed into a furnace, the preferred method of the present invention uses thermal energy from thermal energy storage to provide pre-heat and heating of the furnace, having an inert atmosphere of a gas such as argon, and heated to approximately 2000° C., the preferred method of the current invention also would include the use of heat exchangers and coils near the furnace for the purpose of recycling and recovery of thermal waste energy for the purpose of communicating to thermal energy storage enhancing overall system efficiencies, this thermal energy induces graphitization of the material, changing the molecular bond structure. When heated in the correct conditions, from the preferred method of the present invention thermal energy is communicated to the furnace to enforce these chains to bond side-to-side (ladder polymers), forming narrow graphene sheets which eventually merge to form a single, columnar filament. The result is usually 93-95% carbon. Lower-quality fiber can be manufactured using pitch or rayon as the precursor instead of PAN. The carbon can become further enhanced, as high modulus, or high strength carbon, by heat treatment processes. Carbon heated in the range of 1500-2000° C. (carbonization) exhibits the highest tensile strength (820,000 psi, 5,650 MPa or N/mm2), while carbon fiber heated from 2500 to 3000° C. (graphitizing) exhibits a higher modulus of elasticity (77,000,000 psi or 531 GPa or 531 kN/mm2).
Directed-Energy Weapon System (DEWS) is a weapon system that emits energy or energy accelerated projectile aimed at a specified target in a determined or projected direction or flight path of an intended target. DEWs of prior art have typically been categorized by the frequency in which they operate such as RF (for radio frequency) and such as Laser, which is a weapon based on the type of energy discharge.
Enzymes commercially available now are generally at economical input costs comparable in ratio to the value added chemical process and associated vertical products. Furthermore, any substantial reduction in the cost of production of enzymes will be a positive stimulus for the commercialization of enzymatic depilation. Proteases are one of the most important groups of industrial enzymes and account for nearly 60% of the total enzyme sale. The major uses of free proteases occur in dry cleaning, detergents, meat processing, cheese making, and production of digestive enzymes.
A wide range of microorganisms including them are available commercially; and, they have almost completely replaced chemical hydrolysis of starch in starch processing industry. Although many microorganisms produce this enzyme, the most commonly used for their industrial application are Bacillus licheniformis, Bacillus amyloliquifuciens and Aspergillus niger. Amylases stand out as a class of enzymes, which are of useful applications in the food, brewing, textile, detergent and pharmaceutical industries.
Common biomass can be easily determined after simple drying in oven as well as in dissector and weighing by digital balance. Fungal proteases are of particular importance in the Submerged fermentation is the cultivation of microorganisms in liquid nutrient broth. Industrial enzymes can be produced using this process. This involves selective growing carefully selected microorganisms. The preferred method of the present invention comprises an artificial intelligence controlled and stabilized environmental control system using adaptive metrics, biometrics and thermal imaging sensoring for active analysis, monitoring and machine learning control providing sustainable ecosystem elements encompassing a high volume symmetrical fermentation growth system while incorporating a microalgae bioreactor and organism reactor production system. Through monitoring the health of the enzymes through artificial intelligence analysis, monitoring and control from thermal analysis of fermentation, reactor and bioreactor systems will modify environmental settings for optimized growth and production through a process of machine learning algorithms. The process of harvesting enzymes from the fermentation medium the microbial cells and other insolubles must be removed.
This process is typically performed by centrifugation. In general, most industrial enzymes are extracellular (secreted by cells into the external environment), they remain in the fermented mixture after the biomass has been removed. The biomass can be recycled as a feed additive once dried or may be used fertilizer if it is treated with lime to inactivate the microorganisms and stabilize it for storage and application. The enzymes in the remaining broth are then concentrated by evaporation, membrane filtration or crystallization depending on their intended application. If pure enzyme preparations are required, they are usually isolated by gel or ion exchange chromatography. Certain applications require solid enzyme products, so the crude powder enzymes are made into granules to make them more convenient to use. Sometimes liquid formulations are preferred because they are easier to handle and dose along with other liquid ingredients. Enzymes used in starch conversion to convert glucose into fructose are immobilized, typically on the surfaces of inert granules held in reaction.
Fermentation in liquid media is of two types depending upon the mode of operation: A. Batch fermentation, B. Continuous fermentation. Batch reactors are simplest type of mode of reactor operation. In this mode, the reactor is filled with medium and the fermentation is allowed to proceed. When the fermentation has finished the contents are emptied for downstream processing. The reactor is then cleaned, re-filled, re-inoculated and the fermentation process starts again. Continuous reactors: Fresh media is continuously added and bioreactor fluid is continuously removed. As a result, cells continuously receive fresh medium and products and waste products and cells are continuously removed for processing. The reactor can thus be operated for long periods of time without having to be shut down. Continuous reactors can be many times more productive than batch reactors. This is parity due to the fact that the reactor does not have to be shut down as regularly and also due to the fact that the growth rate of the bacteria in the reactor can be more easily controlled and optimized.
In addition, cells can also be immobilized in continuous reactors, to prevent their removal and thus further increase the productivity of these reactors. Continuous reactors are as yet not widely used in industry but do find major application in wastewater treatment. Fed batch reactor is the most common type of reactor used in industry. In this reactor, fresh media is continuous or sometimes periodically added to the bioreactor but unlike a continuous reactor, there is no continuous removal. The fermenter is emptied or partially emptied when reactor is full or fermentation is finished. As with the continuous reactor, it is possible to achieve high productivities due to the fact that the growth rate of the cells can be optimized by controlling the flow rate of the feed entering the reactor.
Production process of ethanol typically has a few basic steps for large scale production of ethanol which are: microbial (yeast) fermentation of sugars, distillation, dehydration, and denaturing (optional for resale tax advantage). Prior to fermentation, some crops require saccharification or hydrolysis of carbohydrates such as cellulose and starch into sugars. Saccharification of cellulose is called cellulolysis (cellulosic ethanol production). Enzymes are used to convert starch into sugar.
Ethanol fermentation is typically used in the ethanol process in which ethanol is produced by microbial fermentation of the sugar. Microbial fermentation will currently only work directly with sugars. Two major components of plants, starch and cellulose, are both made up of sugars, and can in principle be converted to sugars for fermentation. There are three primary methods primarily consisting of the use of sugar (e.g. sugar cane) and starch (e.g. corn) this would also include the newest method of which there is great efforts currently addressing the area of cellulosic ethanol, where the cellulose part of a plant is broken down to sugars and subsequently converted to ethanol. The preferred method of the present invention will communicate thermal energy from thermal energy storage for the purpose of assisting and maintaining proper fermentation temperatures.
For the ethanol to be usable as a fuel or other intended uses, the majority of the water must be removed. Most of the water is removed by distillation, but the purity is limited to 95-96% due to the formation of a low-boiling water-ethanol azeotrope with maximum (95.6% m/m (96.5% v/v) ethanol and 4.4% m/m (3.5% v/v) water). This mixture is called hydrous ethanol and can be used as a fuel alone, but unlike anhydrous ethanol, hydrous ethanol is not miscible in all ratios with gasoline, so the water fraction is typically removed in further treatment in order to be used as fuel or other intended uses.
There are basically three dehydration processes to remove the water from an azeotropic ethanol/water mixture. The first process, used in many early fuel ethanol plants, is called azeotropic distillation and consists of adding benzene or cyclohexane to the mixture. When these components are added to the mixture, it forms a heterogeneous azeotropic mixture in vapor-liquid-liquid equilibrium, which when distilled produces anhydrous ethanol in the column bottom, and a vapor mixture of water, ethanol, and cyclohexane/benzene. When condensed, this becomes a two-phase liquid mixture. The heavier phase, poor in the entrainer (benzene or cyclohexane), is stripped of the entrainer and recycled to the feed, while the lighter phase together with condensate from the stripping is recycled to the second column. Another early method, called extractive distillation, consists of adding a ternary component which will increase ethanol's relative volatility. When the ternary mixture is distilled, it will produce anhydrous ethanol on the top stream of the column.
Pyrolysis is a thermochemical decomposition of organic material at elevated temperatures in the absence or near absence of oxygen or halogen. Primarily consists and involves the simultaneous change of chemical composition and physical phase, and is irreversible. The word is coined from the Greek-derived elements pyro “fire” and lysis “separating”.
Pyrolysis is a type of thermolysis which is commonly observed in organic materials exposed to high temperatures. Thermal decomposition, or thermolysis, is a chemical decomposition caused by heat. The decomposition temperature of a substance is the temperature at which the substance chemically decomposes. The reaction is usually endothermic as heat is required to break chemical bonds in the compound undergoing decomposition. When not controlled and decomposition is sufficiently exothermic, a positive feedback loop is created producing thermal runaway and can potentially result in an explosion. Pyrolysis is one of the processes involved in charring wood, starting at 200-300° C. (390-570° F.). Typically, pyrolysis of organic substances produces gas and liquid products and leaves a solid residue richer in carbon content, char or coke. Extreme pyrolysis, the primary method of carbon fiber production is a process in which pyrolysis leaves mostly carbon as the residue, is called carbonization.
The pyrolysis process is heavily used in the chemical industry, for example, to produce charcoal, activated carbon, methanol, and other chemicals from wood, to convert ethylene dichloride into vinyl chloride to make PVC, to produce coke from coal, to convert biomass into syngas and bio-char or bio-coke, to turn waste into safely disposable substances, and for transforming medium-weight hydrocarbons from oil into lighter ones like gasoline. These specialized uses of pyrolysis may be called various names, such as dry distillation, destructive distillation, or cracking.
Pyrolysis typically also plays an important role in several cooking procedures, such as baking, frying, grilling, and caramelizing. In addition, it is a tool of chemical analysis, for example, in mass spectrometry and in carbon-14 dating. Many highly important chemical compounds for required life, such as phosphorus and sulfuric acid, were first obtained by this very process. Pyrolysis has generally been assumed to occur during catagenesis, the conversion of buried organic matter to fossil fuels, hence pyrolysis use of pressure and thermal energy. It is also the basis of pyrography. In their embalming process, the ancient Egyptians used a mixture of substances, including methanol, which they obtained from the pyrolysis of wood.
Pyrolysis differs from other high-temperature processes like combustion and hydrolysis in that it usually does not involve reactions with oxygen, water, or any other reagents. In practice, it is not possible to achieve a completely oxygen-free atmosphere. Because some oxygen is present in any pyrolysis system, a small amount of oxidation occurs.
The term has also been applied to the decomposition of organic material in the presence of superheated water or steam (hydrous pyrolysis), for example, in the steam cracking of oil.
Pyrolysis is usually the first chemical reaction that occurs in the burning of many solid organic fuels, like wood, cloth, and paper, and also of some kinds of plastic. In a wood fire, the visible flames are not due to combustion of the wood itself, but rather of the gases released by its pyrolysis, whereas the flame-less burning of a solid, called smoldering, is the combustion of the solid residue (char or charcoal) left behind by pyrolysis. Thus, the pyrolysis of common materials like wood, plastic, and clothing is extremely important for fire safety and firefighting.
In many industrial pyrolysis applications such as Charcoal production, Bio-char production, Coke production, Carbon fiber production, Pyrolytic carbon production, Biofuels, Plastic waste disposal, Waste tire disposal, the process is done under pressure and at operating temperatures above 430° C. (806° F.). For agricultural waste, for example, typical temperatures are 450 to 550° C. (840 to 1,000° F.). The preferred method of the present invention may communicate thermal energy from thermal storage on demand or as needed to maintain renewable energy input and a sustainable method of processing.
Traditional air cooling has several major issues that are typical deficiencies of air cooling systems. First, air cooling systems are generally not very efficient due to fact the humidity in the datacenter air space is kept artificially low, therefore the density of air is tremendously low, this lack of density creates an inefficient mass volume movement of air from its propensity to dissipate flow, thereby thermal transfer inefficiencies between datacenter heat sources requiring cooling and exhaust to expel datacenter thermal energy, which can pose a problem with severely overclocked processors or in particularly beefy rigs filled with multiple graphics cards. Second, the heat sinks on powerful component coolers can get rather large and unruly putting excessive pressure on boards and connections, their size can accentuate air flow blockage and enhance poor air flow from reduced fluid lines for smooth air flow to effectuate efficient thermal transfer removal. Finally, fans are typically loud and tend to fail from blade imbalance, poor bearing construction and from overheating.
Liquid cooling is a highly effective method of removing excess thermal energy, with the most common heat transfer fluid in desktop systems being a water and glycol mixture. The advantages of water cooling over air cooling include water's higher specific thermal energy capacity and thermal conductivity. The principle used in cooling electronics and electrical components is identical to that used in an internal combustion engine, with the liquid coolant being circulated by a coolant pump through a duct to thermal transfer unit, sometimes referred to as a thermal transfer block mounted to the intended target to be cooled and then transferring the thermal energy away from the target out to the thermal transfer heat exchanger to dissipate the thermal energy from the system. Liquids allow the transfer of more thermal energy communicated away from the components being cooled than air, making liquid cooling suitable for overclocking and high-performance computer applications. In comparison with air cooling, liquid cooling is also influenced less by the ambient temperature and little if any influence from humidity. Liquid cooling's comparatively low noise-level compares favorably to that of active cooling, which can become quite noisy.
Disadvantages of liquid cooling include complexity and the potential for a coolant leak. Leaked water can damage any electronic components with which it comes into contact, and the need to test for and repair leaks makes for more complex and less reliable installations. An air-cooled heat sinks are generally much simpler to build, install, and maintain than a water cooling solution, although specific water cooling kits can also be found, which may be just as easy to install as an air cooler. These are not limited to cooling of CPU's, GPU's or short and long-term memory however, as storage drive cooling is also possible.
While originally limited to mainframe computers, liquid cooling has become a practice largely associated with overclocking in the form of either manufactured kits, or in the form of do-it-yourself setups assembled from individually gathered parts. The past few years have seen an increase in the popularity of liquid cooling in pre-assembled, moderate to high performance, desktop computers. Additionally, a sealed or “closed-loop” system will typically incorporating a small pre-filled radiator, fan, and water block simplify the installation and maintenance of water cooling at a slight cost in cooling effectiveness relative to larger and more complex setups.
Traditional water cooling versus the preferred method of the present invention consists a hybrid air and closed-loop chilled liquid coolant cooling system. Typically, liquid cooling is generally combined with air cooling, using liquid cooling for the higher thermal energy components, such as CPUs, GPUs, short and long-term memory, storage drives, voltage regulator modules (VRMs), and even power supplies can be water-cooled. This can be accomplished while retaining the simpler and cheaper air cooling for less demanding component and system cooling and for general datacenter thermal energy removal.
More recently a growing number of companies are manufacturing water-cooling components compact enough to fit inside a computer case and shaped to fit specific motherboards, power units and various components. This, and the general trend to use CPU's, GPU's, drives memory and other thermal intensive components of higher power dissipation, has greatly increased the popularity and usefulness of water cooling, although only a very small select group of computers users such as gamers and video editors, and special effects professionals use liquid coolant-cooled systems.
Modern liquid cooling systems use minor system pressurization, this typically is approximately 15 psi. This process generally raises the boiling-point of the coolant and reduces evaporation. The use of water cooling carries the risk of lower temperature vaporization from heat exposure. Many water based liquid cooling applications require the use of a water and antifreeze mixture, typically glycol.
Liquid coolant in general is typically a water and glycol mixture for removing thermal energy from a component, machine, system or area. Liquid coolant may be recycled through a recirculating system. Recirculating systems generally in prior art rely upon cooling towers, evaporators and economizers to remove thermal energy is accomplished with negligible evaporative loss of cooling water. A heat exchanger or condenser may separate non-contact liquid coolant from a fluid being cooled. Antifreeze also inhibits corrosion from dissimilar metals and can increase the boiling point, allowing a wider range of water cooling temperatures in attempts to raise the vaporization point to a temperature unlikely to be experienced. Its distinctive odor also alerts operators to cooling system leaks and problems that could typically go unattended in a water-only cooling system.
Dairy farming is a class of agriculture, where female cattle, goats, or other mammals are raised for their milk, which may be either processed on-site or transported to a dairy for processing and eventual retail safe. A centralized dairy facility processes milk and dairy products, such as cream, butter, yogurt, cheese and ice cream. Dairy farms generally sell the male calves borne by their mothers for veal meat, as dairy breeds are not normally satisfactory for commercial beef production. Many dairy farms typically grow their own feed, typically including corn, alfalfa, and hay using the manure as fertilizer for the above crops.
Specific species pre-processing for when the targeted species is harvested for commercial purposes, they initially need some preprocessing to be readied safely for delivery to the next part of the product process chain in a fresh and undeteriorated condition. Typical handling and processes are transferring the targeted species from grow out areas to the holding area in the processing area.
Further processing and handling may commence such as sorting and grading, skinner, bleeding, gutting and washing, cutting, chilling, storing the chilled processed species. The number and order in which these operations that are undertaken differ with the various targeted species and the type of processing needed for the finished product.
Targeted species preservation techniques are required to prevent product spoilage, reducing waste from product trimming and lengthen shelf life. There are processes designed to inhibit the activity of spoilage bacteria and the metabolic changes that result in the loss of product quality. Spoilage bacteria are the specific bacteria that produce the unpleasant odors and flavors associated with spoiled product. Targeted species will normally host a variety of bacteria that are not spoilage type of bacteria, and most of the bacteria present on spoiled product played no basis in the spoilage. For, a bacterium to initiate and flourish, it requires the right temperature, sufficient humidity and oxygen, and surroundings that are pH balanced but not too acidic. Various preservation techniques work by interrupting one or more of these requirements.
Control of temperature with the use of ice preserves products during processing and extends shelf life by lowering the temperature. As the temperature is decreased, the metabolic activity in the product from microbial or autolytic processes can be reduced or eliminated. This is achieved by refrigeration where the temperature is dropped to about 0° C., or freezing where the temperature is dropped below −18° C.
Poultry farms are devoted to raising chickens (egg layers or broilers), turkeys, ducks, and other fowl, generally for meat or eggs. Eggs are typically produced on large egg ranches on which environmental parameters are well controlled. Chickens are exposed to artificial light cycles to stimulate egg production year-round. In addition, it is a common practice to induce molting through careful manipulation of light and the amount of food they receive in order to further increase egg size and production.
On average, a chicken lays one egg a day, but not on every day of the year. This varies with the breed and time of year. In 1900, average egg production was 83 eggs per hen per year. In 2000, it was well over 300. In the United States, laying hens are butchered after their second egg laying season. In Europe, they are generally butchered after a single season. The laying period begins when the hen is about 18-20 weeks old (depending on breed and season). Males of the egg-type breeds have little commercial value at any age, and all those not used for breeding (roughly fifty percent of all egg-type chickens) are killed soon after hatching.
Specific species pre-processing for when the targeted species is harvested for commercial purposes, they initially need some preprocessing to be readied safely for delivery to the next part of the product process chain in a fresh and undeteriorated condition. Typical handling and processes are transferring the targeted species from grow out areas to the holding area in the processing area.
Further processing and handling may commence such as sorting and grading, skinner, bleeding, gutting and washing, cutting, chilling, storing the chilled processed species. The number and order in which these operations that are undertaken differ with the various targeted species and the type of processing needed for the finished product.
The land and buildings of a farm are called the “farmstead”. Large animal enterprises where livestock are raised on rangeland are typically called ranches. Where livestock are raised in confinement on feed produced elsewhere, the term feedlot is usually used and generally where final grow out and finishing is completed.
Intensive animal farming or industrial livestock production, also called factory farming, is a modern form of intensive farming that refers to the industrialized production of livestock, including cattle, poultry (in “Battery cages”) and fish in confinement at high stocking density commonly referred to as pens or tanks, a practice typical in industrial farming by agribusinesses. The main products of this industry are meat, milk and eggs for human consumption.
Confinement at high stocking density is one part of a systematic effort to produce the highest output at the lowest cost by relying on economics of scale, modern machinery, biotechnology, and global trade. Factory farms hold large numbers of animals, typically cows, pigs, turkeys, or chickens, often indoors, typically at high densities. The aim of the operation is to produce large quantities of meat, eggs, or milk at the lowest possible cost. Food is supplied in place, and a wide variety of artificial methods are employed to maintain animal health and improve production, such as the use of antimicrobial agents, vitamin supplements, and growth hormones. Physical restraints are used to control movement or actions regarded as undesirable. Breeding programs are used to produce animals more suited to the confined conditions and able to provide a consistent food product. Many routine husbandry practices involve ear tagging, dehorning, loading, medical operations, vaccinations and hoof care, as well as training for agricultural shows and preparations.
Cattle for example once they obtain an targeted-level weight, those on a range or grow lots are then transferred to a feedlot to be fed a specialized animal feed which consists of corn byproducts (derived from ethanol production), barley, and other grains as well as alfalfa, cottonseed meal, and premixes composed of micro-ingredients such as vitamins, minerals, chemical preservatives, antibiotics, fermentation products, and other essential ingredients that are purchased from premix companies, usually in sacked form, for blending into commercial rations. Because of the availability of these products, a farmer who uses his own grain can formulate his own rations and be assured his animals are getting the recommended levels of minerals and vitamins.
Aquaculture is the cultivation of the natural produce of water (fish, shellfish, algae and other aquatic organisms). The term is distinguished from fishing by the idea of active human effort in maintaining or increasing the number of organisms involved, as opposed to overfishing and overburden wild stocks and creating imbalance of the natural ecosystem. Subsets of aquaculture include Mariculture (aquaculture in the ocean); Algaculture (the production of kelp seaweed and other algae); Fish farming (the raising of catfish, tilapia and crawfish in freshwater and brackish ponds or salmon in marine ponds); and the growing of cultured pearls. Extensive aquaculture is based on local photosynthetic production while intensive aquaculture is based on fish fed with an external food supply.
Confinement and overcrowding of animals results in a lack of exercise and natural locomotory behavior, which weakens their bones and muscles. An intensive poultry farm provides the optimum conditions for viral mutation and transmission with thousands of birds crowded together in a closed, warm, and dusty environment is highly conducive to the transmission of a contagious disease. Selecting generations of birds for their faster growth rates and higher meat yields has left birds' immune systems less able to cope with infections and there is a high degree of genetic uniformity in the population, making the spread of disease more likely. Further intensification of the industry has been suggested by some as the solution to avian flu, on the rationale that keeping birds indoors will prevent contamination. However, this relies on perfect, fail-safe biosecurity—and such measures are near impossible to implement.
Movement between farms by people, materials, and vehicles poses a threat and breaches in biosecurity are possible. Intensive farming may be creating highly virulent avian flu strains. With the frequent flow of goods within and between countries, the potential for disease spread is high. Confinement and overcrowding of animals' environment presents the risk of contamination of the meat from viruses and bacteria. Feedlot animals reside in crowded conditions and often spend their time standing in their own waste.
The major concentration of the industry occurs at central slaughter and meat processing plants for this phase, with only seven companies slaughtering and processing with monopolistic percentages of cows, sheep, pigs and chickens. This concentration at the slaughter phase is in large part due to financial and regulatory barriers that make it nearly impossible for small slaughter plants to be built, maintained or stay in business. Factory farming is no more beneficial to livestock producers than traditional farming because it contributes to the overproduction that drives down prices. Through “forward contracts” and “marketing agreements,” meatpackers are able to set the price of livestock long before they are ready for production.
Many of the nation's livestock producers would like to market livestock directly to consumers but with limited USDA inspected slaughter facilities livestock grown locally cannot typically be slaughtered and processed locally.
The fullest extent of the advantage the preferred method of present invention can be realized and monetized from its amalgamation of energy input, energy usage, waste energy recycling, reuse and finally capturing higher efficiencies from optimized performance to reach near theoretical achievable levels. Removing prior art deficiencies and inefficiencies from prior arts attempts at flawed implementation to answer a need with a typically individualized answer or solution while fulfilling only a narrow segment of the need in question versus the preferred method of the present invention fulfilling a solution to meet the needs and the query while offering answers and solutions to questions and issues created from the sequence of fulfilling the initial need or query. The preferred method of the present invention examines not only the initial needs and questions but attempts to provide additional answers and solutions to complex consequences created by fulfillment of the initial needs and queries as a complete and robust solution.